"In i n^ >iii I II mm 1* SEP ;^ 0 1907 *] Divisioa 1-^^ Section THE LIFE OF CHRIST VOLUME II MW ©fagtat: Remigius Lafort, S.T.L. , Censor. ^^mprimator : "I^JoHN M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. April 10, 1907. THE LIFE OF CHRIST . By MGR. E. LE CAMUS Bishop of La Rochelle, France Translated by WILLIAM A. HICKEY Priest of the Diocese of Springfield VOLUME 11 New York The Cathedral Library Association MCMVII Copyright, 1907, by THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England Printed, June, 1907 THE TROW PRESS • NEW YORK CONTENTS SECOND VOLUME BOOK II (Continued from Volume I) Formative Period in Galilee Section II Jesiis Christ as Teacher of His Church CHAPTER I THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT— THE CHARTER OF THE NEW LAW PAGE The Church, Once Organised, Must Be Instructed— The Mount of the Beatitudes— The Auditory— The Sermon Treats of the Three Great Questions: Happiness, Justice, and Wisdom— Who Are the Happy, and Who the Unhappy— The Disciples Must Make Justice Shine Before the Eyes of Men— The Foundations of Justice — The Perfection of Justice — Of the Former Times and of the Present— Ad- ditions and Explanations— Modest ■, Sincerity, Discretion— Lessons of Practical Wisdom, Charity, Prudence, Energy— Works Must Fol- low Faith that the Edifice May Be Solid— Impressions of His Hear- ers. (St. Matthew v, 1; vii, 29; and parallel passages in St. Luke vi, 20-49.) 3 CHAPTER II THE LAW OF MERCY AND THE SINFUL WOMAN IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE Magdala and Its Evil Reputation — Where Simon's Hospitality Fails — The Siimer in the Midst of the Banquet— The Heroism of Her Re- pentance—Unfavourable Attitude of the Pharisee — Jesus' Question [v] CONTENTS PAGE — The Lesson Addressed to Simon — A First Grace Begets Love and Love Calls Forth Pardon — Peace of Soul and the New Life Created by the Words of Jesus. (St. Luke vii, 36-50.) 31 CHAPTER III CONTROVERSY WITH THE PHARISEES The Pharisees Precede Jesus to Capharnaum to Calumniate Him — He Is in League with Beelzebub — His Crushing RepHes — The Defeat of the Strong Man— His Terrible Revenge — The Sin against the Holy Ghost — Enthusiasm of the Multitude — Asking for a Sign from Heaven — The Sign of Jonas — In the Judgment, the Queen of Saba and the Ninevites Will Confound the Children of Israel — The Eye of the Soul — Faith Creates Kinship with Jesus. (St. Mark iii, 19-35; St. Matthew xii, 22-50; St. Luke xi, 17-36.) 41 CHAPTER IV THE PARABLES ON THE SHORES OF THE LAKE Why Jesus Begins to Speak in Parables— The Nature of the Parable — The Seed-Sowing and Varieties of Soil — The Master's Detailed Ex- planation— A Complementary Parable in St. Mark — The Grain of Mustard-Seed — The Leaven — The Cockle Among the WTieat — Jesus' Explanation — The Treasure — ^The Precious Stone — ^The Net and the Definitive Separation of the Good from the Wicked — The True Teacher, for the Sake of His Hearers, Varies His Manner of Teaching. (St. Matthew xiii, 1-53; St. Mark iv, 1-34; St. Luke viii, 4-18, and xiii, 18-21.) 52 CHAPTER V THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE A New Apostolic Journey into Galilee — The Women Who Follow Jesus — Their Devotion — The Master Determines to Introduce the Twelve to the Works of the Apostolate — The Wise Instructions He Gives Them— To Do Good to the Man of God Will Be the Same as to Do It to God Himself — ^The Apostles Depart, Two by Two, and Work Wonders. (St. Luke viii, 1-3, and ix, 1-6; St. Matthew x, 1-15, 40-42; St. Mark vi, 7-13.) 73 [vi] CONTENTS Section III Jesus Disciplines His Church CHAPTER I HEROD ORDERS JOHN THE BAPTIST TO BE PUT TO DEATH PAGE Popular Opinion Regarding Jesus — Herod's Terror — How Two Wom- en, Herodias, the Adulteress, and Salome, the Dancer, Induced Him to Sentence the Precursor to Death — The Baptist's Head on a Charger — Herod Would See Jesus — Danger of Sedition — The With- drawal to Philip's Territory. (St. Mark vi, 14-16 and 21-29; St. Matthew xiv, 1 and 6-12; St. Luke ix, 7-9.) 82 CHAPTER II JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD AND WALKS UPON THE WATER His Motives for Escaping from the Enthusiastic Multitudes — Journey to the Desert of Bethsaida — The Multitudes Preceded Jesus — How Shall Five Thousand Men Be Nourished with Five Loaves of Bread and Tw^o Small Fishes ? — Creative Power of the Divine Benediction — The Passover in the Desert — The People Show Their Political Intentions — Jesus Has the Apostles Embark in Order to Withdraw Them from the Influence of the Multitude — He Comes to Them Walking on the Water — Peter Is Associated with Him in the IVIiracle — They Approach Genesareth. (St. Luke ix, 10-17; St. Mark vi, 30-56; St. Matthew xiv, 13-36; St. John vi, 1-21.) . . 88 CHAPTER III DISCOURSE ON THE BREAD OF LIFE The Partisans of a Political Messiah Rejoin Jesus at Caphamaum — Jesus Rejects Their Earthly Views— How He Understands His Royalty— He Is the Bread of Life for Those Wliom the Father Brings to Him— He Desires that Man Shall Receive Not Only His Doctrine, but Also His Flesh and His Blood; Which Are to Be Offered for the Life of the World — The Meaning of the Offering — [vii] CONTENTS PAGE Perfect Communion — Dissension Among the Adherents of Jesus — Peter's Response — Hypocritical Silence of Judas. (St. John \'i, 22-71.) 100 CHAPTER IV THE PHARISEES AGAIN ASSUME THE OFFENSIVE Renewed Enthusiasm — The Ears of Corn Gathered and Eaten on the Sabbath — Jesus' Twofold Response — The Sabbath Is for Man, Not Man for the Sabbath — Eating with Unwashed Hands — A Counter- Question in Reply — Jesus' Sublime INIorality: Only That Which Comes from the Heart Defiles a Man — The Anger of the Pharisees — Jesus' Appreciation — His Explanations to the Disciples — The Man with the Withered Hand — Jesus Questions His Adversaries — They Refuse to Answer — Their Resolution to Join with the Herod- ians and to Put Jesus to Death. (St. Luke \i, 1-11; St. Mark ii, 23-28; vii, 1-23; iii, 1-6; St. Matthew xii, 1-8; xv, 1-20; xii, 9-14.) . 114 CHAPTER V JESUS RETIRES TO THE BORDERS OF PHCENICIA AND WITHIN THE REGION OF THE DECAPOLIS Reasons for This Retreat — The Woman of Canaan — Her Admirable Faith — Her Daughter Is Cured — If Jesus Saw Tyre and Sidon, What Must His Impressions Have Been? — The Road to the De- capolis — The Cure of the Deaf-Mute — Great Concourse of People Demanding Miracles— Universal Enthusiasm— Second Multiplica- tion of the Loaves — Jesus Leaves This Country. (St. Matthew xv, 21-88; St. Mark vii, 24-37; \aii, 1-9.) 128 CHAPTER VI AS HE APPROACHES CAPHARNAUM, JESUS FINDS THAT THE DANGER STILL EXISTS The Pharisees Have Allied Themselves with Herod's Partisans — On Landing Jesus Sees Them Approaching — They Again Demand a Sign — Why?— Jesus Replies, Unmasks Their Hypocrisy, and Im- mediately Departs — His Thoughts with Regard to His Disciples — [ viii ] CONTENTS PAGE The Leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod — ^Their Great Mistake — They Understand at Last. (St. Matthew xv, 39; xvi, 1-12; St. Mark viii, 10-21.) 138 CHAPTER VII ON THE WAY TO C/ESAREA-PHILIPPI The Blind Man of Bethsaida — Retreat Tov.ard Ciesarea — The Impor- tant Question : "Who Do Men Say that I Am? " — ^The Opinions of the People — Peter's Striking Confession — Tu Es Christus — Simon's Merit— Tu Es Petrus— The Indefectible Church Shall Have a Head — Jesus Foretells His Own Death — The Scandal Because of the Mes- siah's Humiliation — Hard Lesson Given to Peter— Beautiful Teach- ing Given the Multitude Concerning the Christian Spirit. (St. Mat- thew xvi, 13-28; St. Mark viii, 22-38, and ix, 1; St. Luke ix, 18-27.) 144 CHAPTER VIII THE TRANSFIGURATION Why Jesus Permitted Himself to Be Seen in a State of Glory — His Re- treat to the Mountain for Purposes of Prayer — ^The Phenomenon of the Transfiguration — What It Must Have Been in the Man-God — Jesus Radiant Between Moses and Elias — Their Heavenly Con- ference— The Emotion of the Three Apostles — The Great Testimony of the Father — Question Concerning Elias — At the Foot of the Mountain the Disciples Are Worried and the Scribes Triumph — The Lunatic — Jesus' Indignation— The Father's Touching Prayer — ^The Power of Faith — ^The Demoniac Is Healed — Jesus' Triumph. (St. Luke ix, 28-43; St. Mark ix, 2-29; St. Matthew xvii, 1-21.) . 160 CHAPTER IX LAST VISIT TO CAPHARNAUM Jesus Again Speaks of His Death — ^The Tax-Gatherers of Capharnaum — Ought the Master to Pay the Tribute ? — Theoretical and Practical Solutions of the Question — He Pays for Peter— Jealousy and Dis- pute Concerning the Primacy — Jesus' Explanation — Admirable Theory as Regards the Primacy — The Man Whom the Disciples For- bid to Cast Out Demons — Scandal — ^The Crime and Misfortune of Those Who Seek to Destroy the Church by Scandalising Her Chil- [ixl CONTENTS PAGE dren— The Shepherd's Love for His Sheep. (St. Matthew xvii, 22-27; xviii, 1-14; St. Mark ix, 30-50; St. Luke ix, 43-50; xvii, 1-2; XV, 3-7.) 174 CHAPTER X DISCOURSE ON THE FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES Jesus' Reasons for Speaking of Fraternal Correction^ — Prudence and Caution in Charity— The Denunciation to the Church — Excommu- nication— How Often Must One Forgive ? — ^The Master's Admira- ble Response — The Parable of the Debtor. (St. Matthew xviii, 15-35.) 188 CHAPTER XI THE SUMMONS TO MANIFEST HIMSELF IN JERU- SALEM The Worldly Argimients of Jesus' Brothers — The Motives That Inspire Them — The Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem — Summons to Ap- pear in His True Light— The Views of Divine Wisdom — Jesus' Hour— The Ministry in Galilee Is Ended. (St. John vii, 1-10.) . 199 BOOK III Period of Combat in Judea Section I First Conflict on the Feast of Tabernacles CHAPTER I THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF JESUS DURING THE FESTIVAL The Various Opinions of the Multitude with Regard to Jesus, Whom They Would Like to See — His Sudden Appearance in the Temple — He Presents His Apology for His Teaching and His Conduct — Cat- egorical Declarations Regarding His Origin — ^The Higher Authori-, ties Cause Him to Be Watched — The Solemn Warning and Threat Which He Addressed to His Enemies. (St. John vii, 11-36.) . . 205 CONTENTS CHAPTER II THE SOLEMN DECLARATION ON THE LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL PAOB The Day That Came After the Seventh — The Solemn Libation — The Various Meanings of This Ceremony — Its Prophetic Signification- Jesus' Solemn Declaration : He Is the True Source of Living Water — ^The Impressions of the Multitude as They Heard Him — They Dare Not Lay Hands on Him — The Conference of the Sanhedrim After the Return of the Emissaries — ^Nicodemus' Plea. (St. John vii, 37-52.) 216 CHAPTER III THE WOMAN TAKEN 1n ADULTERY The Pharisees Ask that Jesus Act as Judge in the Case of a Woman Taken in Adultery — The Two-fold Danger Which They Seek to Create — Jesus Remains Silent and Writes Upon the Ground — What He Wrote — The Words He Addresses to the Accusers Transfer the Question from Juridical to Moral Grounds — He Sustains the Law, but Suppresses the Accusers — The Simier Is Forgiven. (St. John vii, 63-viii, 11.) . .226 CHAPTER IV JESUS, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD The Illuminations of the Feast of Tabernacles and Their SymboHsm — The True Light of Mankind Is Jesus — Objection Raised by This Solemn Assertion — Reply: Though Jesus Should Alone Give Testi- mony of Himself, They Must Believe Him; but the Father Gives Testimony with Him— "Where Is Thy Father?"— He Must Be Sought in the Son — ^This Took Place in the Court of the Treasury and Within Hearing of the Sanhedrim. (St. John viii, 12-20.) . 235 CHAPTER V THEY WHO BELIEVE ALONE ARE FREE AND DIE NOT Jesus Will Abandon Those Who Refuse to Accept Him — To Be Saved One Must Believe that Jesus Is He — Who Is He? — Sublime Defini- [xi] CONTENTS PAGE tion — The Jews Shall Not Comprehend It Until Later — Those Who Believe Alone Are Free — Although They Call Themselves the Children of Abraham, the Jews Are Slaves of Sin and Spiritual Sons of the Demon— The Fury of Those Who Hear Him — Immortality Promised to the Faithful — Abraham Is Less than Jesus — Violent Ending of the Discussion. (St. John viii, 21-59.) . . . ,242 CHAPTER VI THE MAN BORN BLIND The Disciples' Question Concerning Physical Evil in the Case of One Born Blind — Jesus' Response — Conditions Under WTiich He Gives the Blind Man the Sense of Sight — Siloe and Its Mystical Significa- tion— General Excitement Produced by the Miracle — The Inquisi- tion and W^hat Came of It — ^The Triumphant Attitude of tlie Man Who Was Cured — Results of the Miracle: for the Blind Man, Faith; for Others, Obstinacy in Their Blindness. (St. John ix, 1-41.) . 256 CHAPTER VII THE CHRIST AND HIS FLOCK Jesus Employs a Double Allegory: He Is the Door of the Fold and at the Same Time the Good Shepherd of the Flock — The Door Is for True Shepherds Who Come There to Call the Sheep — The Sheep Follow Them — Whosoever Enters by Any Other Way Is a Robber, and the Flock Heeds Him Not — The Good Shepherd Is Distin- guished from the Mercenary by His Devotion to His Flock — ^The Two Flocks Which the Great Shepherd Is to Unite. (St. John x, 1-21.) 270 CHAPTER VIII JESUS RETURNS INTO GALILEE WTiy It Is Probable that Jesus, After the Feast of Tabernacles. Re- turned at Once Into Galilee — His Task There, and What Necessi- tated His Absence from Jerusalem — Different Impressions at Ca- pharnaum 281 [xii] CONTENTS Section II Jesus with His Little Church Leaves Galilee in View of the Final Struggle CHAPTER I SOLEMN DEPARTURE FROM CAPHARNAUM PAGE Resolute Attitude of Jesus as He Advances to the Struggle — Sad Fare- well to the Faithless Cities of Galilee — A Town in Samaria Refuses Him Hospitality — Indignation of the Sons of Thunder — The Spirit of the Gospel — Three Candidates for the Apostolate — The One Must Pause for Thought — Another Must Advance Without Delay — Having Once Begun, No One MustJLook Back, (St. Luke ix, 51-62; St. Matthew viii, 19-22; xi, 20-24.) 286 CHAPTER II THE MISSION OF THE SEVENTY DISCIPLES The Time Is Short, the Labourers Must Be Multiplied — The Great Apostolic Campaign of the Seventy Disciples — The Instructions Which They Receive, Some Identical with Those Given to the Apostles, Others for Them Alone — Success of This Mission — The Disciples Return Triumphant — The Words of Jesus — Expressions of Joy and Love for the Father. (St. Luke x, 1-24; St. Matthew xi, 25-30.) 295 CHAPTER III A SCRIBE ASKS: "WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?" A Scribe Comes and Asks What One Must Do to Be Saved — Love God and Thy Neighbour— " Who Is My Neighbour?"— The Beautiful Parable of the Samaritan — In Misfortune We Desire to Have Every One as a Neighbour — ^Therefore the Afflicted Must Be Our Neigh- bours. (St. Matthew xix, 1 ; St. Mark x, 1 ; St. Luke x, 25-37.) . 305 [ 2^i" ] CONTENTS CHAPTER IV THE HOME OF MARTHA AND MARY PAGE The Family at Bethany — Martha, Lazarus, and Mary — The Different Characters of the Two Sisters — Mary's Is Easily Explained, Es- pecially if She Was None Other Than the Sinner, Mary Magdalen — Decisive Reasons That Support This Hypothesis — Magdalen Had at That Time Gone Back to Bethany — The Social Position of the Family — HospitaUty Differently Offered and Differently Understood by the Sisters — Martha Is Troubled, Whereas Mary Listens — Mar- tha's Vexation and Her Demand — Jesus' Reply — A Lesson of Wisdom. (St. Luke x, 38-42.) 315 CHAPTER V JESUS TEACHES HIS DISCIPLES HOW TO PRAY The Disciples and the Theory of Prayer — The Lord's Prayer: the In- vocation, the Six Petitions in Particular and in Their Relations, the Conclusion— The Efficaciousness of Prayer Proved by the Example of the Importunate Friend — The Paternal Goodness of God. (St. Luke xi, 1-13; St. Matthew vi, 9-13; vii, 7-11.) . . . .328 CHAPTER VI JESUS AT THE FEAST OF THE DEDICATION The Signification of This Feast — Jesus in Solomon's Porch — He Is Be- sought to Explain Himself — Jesus' Response: "/ and the Father Are One" — The Anger of the Jews at His Claim to Divinity — The Claim Ought Not to Worry Them; Why? — Nor the Fact — Jesus Asserts It a Second Time — He Escapes from His Enemies and Leaves Jerusalem. (St. John x, 22-39.) 340 CHAPTER VII ON THE ROAD BACK TO PER^A Jesus' Soul Is Filled with Indignation Against the Pharisees — An Oc- casion That Causes It to Burst Forth — Maledictions Uttered During a Repast at the House of One of Them — Grand and Beautiful Les- [xiv] CONTENTS PAGE son to the Disciples in the Presence of the Multitude — What We Must and Must Not Fear— Jesus Refuses to Intervene in a Division of Family Goods — Parable of the Foolish Rich Man. (St. Luke xi, 37; xii, 21.) 349 CHAPTER VIII LESSONS OF WISDOM AND EFFUSIONS OF PIETY Teachings on Abandonment to the Paternal Kindness of God — Simple and Touching Reasons That Favour It — Our Treasure Should Be in Heaven — Another Series of Teachings on Christian Vigilance — Parable of the Servants Awaiting Their Master — The Son of Man Comes Like a Thief — Peter's Question — The Two Stewards — Jesus Utters the Thoughts That Oppress His Heart— The Flame Which He Is Come to Bring Into the World— The Hour of the Conflict Approaches — They Do Not Understand Him. (St. Luke xii, 22- 59; St. Matthew vi, 25-33; vi, 19-21; xxiv, 43-51; x, 34-36.) . . 360 CHAPTER IX OTHER CURES ON THE SABBATH-DAY— A DINNER AT THE HOUSE OF A PHARISEE Jesus Is Well Received in Persea — He There Again Meets the Pharisees with Their Scruples About Healing on the Sabbath — ^The Woman "Bowed Together," and the Apothegm on the Ass and the Ox Loosed from the Manger — ^The Dropsical Man in the Pharisee's House — Wise Lessons Regarding the Desire for the First Places — The Guests Whom It Is Best to Invite, and Those Who Are to Participate in the Eternal Banquet — The Parable of the Great Sup- per. (St. John X, 40-42; St. Luke xiii, 10-17, and xiv, 1-24.) . . 374 CHAPTER X THE SMALL NUMBER OF THE ELECT, AND THE REPROBATION OF ISRAEL Is It the Minority That Shall Be Saved?— The Real Gate Is Narrow— The Wide Gate Exists Only in the Imagination of Sinners — Woe to the Jews Who Shall Have Remained Outside, and Who Should Have Been Within — Tidings from Jerusalem — There Are Greater [xv] CONTENTS PAGE Criminals than the Galileans Massacred by Pilate or the Jews De- stroyed by the Tower of Siloe — God's Justice After His Mercy — The Parable of the Barren Fig-Tree. (St. Luke xiii, 22-30, and xiii, 1-9.) 387 CHAPTER XI A FIRST ENTHUSIASM NOT SUFFICIENT TO MAKE DISCIPLES The Enthusiasm of the Multitudes — Jesus Explains What One Must Do to Become a Disciple — He Must Hate That Which He Has Held Most Dear — He Must Bear His Cross — The Tower to Be Built and the War to Be Waged — Salt Is Good — The Plots of the Pharisaical Faction to Draw Jesus Out of Peraea — The Master's Grave and Solemn Response. (St. Luke xiv, 25-35; xiii, 31-33.) . . . 395 CHAPTER XII THE MERCY OF GOD IN PARABLES God Pities the Sinner, Because He Sees Him in Danger : the Parable of the Lost Sheep — He Is Sorry for His Errors, Because a Man Given to Sin Is One Just Man Less to Glorify Him: the Parable of the Lost Groat — He Loves Him, Because the Sinner Is Ever His Son: the Parable of the Prodigal Son — Final Blow Aimed at the Jealous Pharisees. (St. Luke xv, 1-32.) 402 CHAPTER XIII WORKS OF CHARITY AND THE FUTURE LIFE Works of Charity the Way to Heaven — ^Publicans, Pharisees, Sadducees, All Must Remember This — ^The Steward's Fortunate Breach of Trust — We Must Become Friends with the Treasures That God Confides to Us — The Pharisees' Detestable Attitude — Another Par- able: Lazarus and the Sinful Rich Man — ^The Judgments of the Future Life — Since Moses and the Prophets Have Spoken, the Tes- timony of One Risen from the Dead Were Useless. (St. Luke xvi, 1-31.) 425 [xvi] CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV THE HUMILITY THAT MARKS THE TRUE SER- VANTS OF GOD PAQB Pride, Even Before God, the Radical Vice of Pharisaism — ^The Apostles Furnish Jesus an Excellent Opjxjrtunity to Condemn It — " Increase Our Faith" — In Strict Justice, God Is Never Man's Debtor — This Theory Is the True Basis of Humility — ^The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. (St. Luke xvii, 5-10; xviii, 9-14.) . . . 439 CHAPTER XV JESUS GOES TO BETH.\NY TO RAISE LAZARUS TO LIFE AGAIN The Message from Bethany — ^The Master's Response — ^Two Days' Delay — The Disciples' Hesitation to Go to Judea — The Arrival at Bethany and the Dialogue with Martha — Mary Joins Her Sister — Jesus' Emotion — "Where Have You Laid Him?" — Jesus Weeps Before the Tomb — The Motives of His Prayer to the Father — "Lazarus, Come Forth!" — ^The Effect of the Miracle on Those Present. (St. John xi, 1-46.) . .446 CHAPTER XVI THE SANHEDRIM DECIDES TO MAKE AWAY WITH JESUS— HE RETREATS TO EPHREM Solemn Assembly of the Sanhedrim — A Probable Account of the Meeting — Coarse and Brutal Words of Caiphas — His Involuntary Prophecy — Jesus Retreats to Ephrem — ^The Apostles Must Pray Constantly That the Kingdom of God May Come — Parable of the Unjust Judge and the Widow. (St. John xi, 47-54; St. Luke xviii, 1-8.) . .461 CHAPTER XVII HOW THE FIRST BECOME LAST AND THE LAST FIRST Of Ten Lepers Who Are Healed, Only One Shows Gratitude — He Is a Samaritan Whom Faith Makes Whole — Parable of the Labourers Sent to the Vineyard — The Significance of the Penny Given to Each [ xvii ] CONTENTS PAGE One — The Call to Salvation Not Identical with Salvation Itself — Story of the Rich Young Man — After Having Observed the Com- mandments, He Hesitates Before the Evangelical Counsels — His Riches a Hindrance to His Entering Heaven — Peter's Question — The Reward of Those Who Abandon All. (St. Luke x\ii, 12-19; St. Matthew xx, 1-16; St. Luke xviii, 18-30; St. Mark x, 17-31; St. Matthew xix, 16-30.) 469 CHAPIER XVIII MARRIAGE, CELIBACY, AND CHILDREN IN THE EYES OF JESUS The Great Question of Divorce — Hillel and Schammai — Jesus Is for God Against Both — He Recalls and Restores the Primitive Ordi- nance—Admirable Argumentation — The Objection Taken from Moses, and Its Answer — Absolute Indissolubility According to the New Law — ^The Excellence of Celibacy — Benediction of Little Chil- dren. (St. Matthew xix, 3-15; St. Mark x, 2-16; St. Luke xviii, 15-17.) 487 [ xviii ] PART SECOND (Continued from Volume I) THE PUBLIC LIFE OF THE SAVIOUR BOOK II (Continued from Volume I) Formative Period in Galilee Section II Jesus Christ as Teacher of His Church CHAPTER I THE SERMON ON THE ISIOUNT— THE CHARTER OF THE NEW LAW The Church, Once Organised, Must Be Instructed — The Mount of the Beatitudes — The Auditory — The Sermon Treats of the Three Great Ques- tions: Happiness, Justice, and Wisdom — Who Are the Happy, and Who the Unhappy — The Disci- ples Must Make Justice Shine Before the Eyes of Men — The Foundations of Justice — The Per- fection OF Justice — Of the Former Times and of the Present — Additions and Explanations — Mod- esty, Sincerity, Discretion — Lessons of Practical Wisdom, Charity, Prudence, Energy — Works Must Follow Faith that the Edifice May Be Solid — Im- pressions OF His Hearers. (St. Matthew v, 1 ; vii, 29 ; and parallel passages in St. Luke vi, 20-49.) Our Lord's great catechetical discourses naturally fol- low the selection of the twelve Apostles. The first effort toward the official organisation of the youthful Church [3] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second was to be succeeded by the promulgation of the law which was to rule her members, and of the dogmas which were to be the object of her faith. A society is not founded simply by the exterior act which brings individuals into a single whole, nor by any special adoption of a name which distinguishes them from the rest of mankind. It must be cast in an intellectual mould which will give it uniqueness and furnish it, at the same time, with a definite formative principle of being. Its members must needs live by the same breath, in virtue of a common inspiration and of common hopes. What the soul is to the body their own common doctrine will be to this society. Hence Jesus' very first thought, in His desire to form the Church accord- ing to His own likeness, must have been to bestow upon her His own thought, as the indispensable element of her hfe, embracing, at once, both the realm of dogma and the realm of morals, which constitute the speculative and the practical sides of the new faith. Doubtless He had not waited until now to begin this diffi- cult task. From the outset of His public life He had divided the long days of His Apostolate between healing the sick and instructing the ignorant. But the importuni- ties of the multitude, who demanded miracles above every- thing else, made continuous and well-developed teaching almost an impossibility. There had been prodigies enough to inspire belief, but faith must now be quickened by doctrine. The future of the Church depends, in part, on the religious knowledge of the Apostles. Therefore, though miraculous works are still to go on, they shall hence- forth be relegated to a secondary place in the Gospel his- tory. The discourses are now to become the essential part. The first which we have to study, and which according to St. Luke immediately follows the selection of the Twelve, is called the Sermon on the Mount. It is of capital im- [4] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT portance, inasmuch as it exposes the Master's ideas of the three questions that concern our moral Hfe, namely, happi- ness, justice, and wisdom} We may rightly say that this was in a way the charter of the New Law. St. Luke has preserved for us only an abridgment of it. St. Matthew, who, as Papias says, took special pains to gather Our Lord's sayings, presents this discourse with a wealth of development. Owing to the analogous nature of the sub- jects, and through the force of a simple association of ideas, he has even inserted some fragments, which on St. Luke's authority we shall place where they more naturally belong.^ Even without these fragments, the discourse re- mains comparatively of such length that some have ad- vanced the opinion that it was not a single instruction but a summary of successive teachings which Jesus gave to the people during His sojourn upon the mount. This hypothesis is not improbable, if we admit that the Saviour detained the multitude for some time in the solitary places where He seemed temporarily to have established Himself.^ * M. Godet, in his Commentary on St. Luke, 3d edit., proposes another division of Jesus' discourse which deserves notice: 1st, the call of those who were to constitute the new society; 2d, the fundamental principles of that society; 3d, the responsibilities of its members. We thuik it can be con- nected with our own. Jesus promises happiness to those whom He calls, He prescribes justice to those who come, and He recommends wisdom to those who remain with Him. ^ It is certainly not impossible that Our Lord should have more than once repeated the same instructions, yet it is not probable that His rich nature, in expounding the same thoughts, always had servile recourse to the same figures and often to the same expressions. Inasmuch as it is evident that St. Matthew did not seek to maintain the strictest order in his narrative, we may reasonably suppose that he was not much more concerned about ad- hering to it in his discourses. As he groups together, simply because they have an analogous meaning (ch. xiii), parables separated from each other by several incidents, so he may have united in one great moral thesis diverse fragments that refer to the development of the spiritual hfe. ^ By explaining the terms KadliravTOi uvtov as establishing Himself in- stead of seating Himself, we more easily do away witli all difficulties arising from the apparent divergences of St. Luke. But this translation, which, moreover, is not the most natural, is not absolutely necessary to harmo- nise the accounts of the two Evangelists. For it is enough to remember that [5] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second If Koroun-Hattin is really identical with the Mount of the Beatitudes they were, at the time, not far from the road that led to Capharnaum, in sight of those wild and rocky defiles of Arbela where Herod, in his pursuit of the Zealots, had caused movable cages to be suspended from the almost inaccessible precipices, thus enabling his soldiers to reach the champions of national independence in their solitary retreats. The Mount of the Beatitudes rises, in fact, to the south-west of Arbela, at the eastern extremity of the beautiful plain of Sephoris, at about two hours' distance from Tiberias and three from Magdala. Because of its peculiar formation and the small village located upon its northern slope the Arabs have named it the Horns of Hattin. A broad plateau spreads out about one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the highway which runs along it to the south, and between two peaks of irregular height, in which, on the east and on the west, the mountain terminates. Sections of rock, which bear traces as of a circle of picturesque seats, seem to attest that here in former times some august assembly had con- vened. Upon the peak to the east is a small and perfectly level space, quite uniform, and measuring, perhaps, three hundred paces in circumference. In this spot Jesus passed a whole night in prayer before He made His selection of Apostles. From here He descended into the second pla- teau, which St. Luke calls "a level place," * and there re- joined the people who were awaiting Him. here, as in the calling of the four on the shore of the lake, St. Matthew abridges, while St. Luke gives the details. Thus, the first Synoptic simply says that Jesus climbed the mountain and preached there; the third tells us that He passed the night on the moimtain top, and that then, having chosen the Twelve, He descended into a plain upon its slope. There He halted {tarri) according to St. Luke, whereas He sat down according to St. Matthew. What contradiction is there between the two Evangelists ? * This is the meaning of M rSirov ireSivod. If he meant to designate the plain, he would have said eirl TreSlov. The author passed through these [6] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT The gathering was made up of people from all parts. First, Galilee, and then Judea and Jerusalem, Decapolis, the lands beyond the Jordan, even the heathen countries, such as Idumaea, Tyre, and Sidon, were represented by pil- grims, some of whom were in search of instruction, while others sought to be cured or wished only to see through curiosity. The multitude was grouped around Jesus quite natu- rally in hierarchical order. Like an immense crown, the nameless crowd enclosed the disciples in a circle of honour, and the latter in their turn respectfully surrounded the group of newly chosen Apostles. The Master presided. And here we find the first integral representation of the Church united about her Head, with her ministers of the first and second orders and the people. The Saviour, thus contemplating His work, must have experienced a serene joy. At last there was the Israel of the second alliance, living and awaiting the bread of the Word. St. Matthew says: "Jesus, opening His mouth, taught them." Of the many questions which He might have made the theme of His instruction. He deemed it best to begin with that of happiness. The philosophy of all ages had been occupied with it, but had never dreamed of solving it in the sense in which the new religion would expound it. Jesus is to make relative happiness identical with humility in the present life, and absolute happiness with the joys of the life to come. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs Is the King- dom of Heaven !" With these words He first declares happy those souls who, in their detachment from the goods of earth, are great enough to despise them, though they places in the spring of 1899. They agree well with the terrible memories that Josephus {Antiq., xiv, 15, 4, 5; B. J., i, 16, 2-4) has associated with their name. LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second possess them, or not to desire them when they have them not. The Kingdom of Heaven is their right, their as- sured possession. One's flight toward the higher world is never loftier than when one is free from entangle- ment in the snares of matter. To despise earth is to purchase heaven. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land !" Meekness, the flower of charity whose sweet fragrance checks the hand that is about to pluck it, receives the prom- ise of ruling the land. Violence is not durable; it is con- demned to devour itself; and, in any case, it can produce only victims or malcontents. Those who employ it leave behind them naught but hateful memories. Meekness, which is yet a force, but a restrained force, is at all times unchanging and beneficent. Its power is the greater the more directly it is exercised on hearts. If it conquers, it conceals its triumphs beneath the honest assertions of most tender kindness. He who has received it as his por- tion, or who has acquired it by labour, may esteem himself blessed. His influence in the world will be great; but greater yet will be his merit before God. His certain recompense is in particular the promised land of God's king- dom, triumph in eternity. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com- forted." Tears, however bitter, are still a blessing. If they are caused by deception, they may be likened to a veil that falls from our eyes and discloses to us life in its sad reality. If they are caused by repentance, they are a cleansing sacrament ; if by love, they are a cry that does violence to heaven itself. God resists not ; He gives Him- self to the loving heart that calls Him. The Messiah's coming is the best argument to prove that. He comes to tell those who lOve God, I am the proof that God loves you ; to those who repent of their sins, they are forgiven [8] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT you ; to those who weep for their f olhes, henceforth I shall be your light ; and all are greatly comforted. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be filled." This ardent desire of justice is the characteristic mark of great spirits. It makes itself felt in the soul with a violence like that of the most impera- tive needs of our material nature, hunger and thirst. And nothing is more natural; justice is the true, the beautiful, and the good, for which our souls have been created; the spirit in us demands this divine nourishment, just as our bodies must have food and drink. Unfortunately the majority of men stifle this, the soul's natural cry; but blessed is he who asks for God and His justice. He shall have them and shall be filled with their delights ; Jesus brings them both. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Kindness begets kindness. If the heart readily turns toward all who suffer, in order to sympathise with them in their pain, to assuage it, to check it, it is not possible that God, in Whose sight we are all beggars in various stages of misery, should fail to turn toward us to touch, to heal, and to lift us up. Nothing more surely reaches Our Heavenly Father's heart than the sight of our own heart's charity for our earthly brethren. His mercy is the reward of ours. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." The soul's eye, like the body's eye, may see only when it is undimmed. If it is in any way tarnished, it discerns only imperfectly the objects upon which it looks. If it is absolutely defiled, it sees absolutely nothing. Hence we know how it is that impurity, injustice, and pride are commonly associated with Infidelity, and that an evil life leads to atheism. Whatever name we give it, uncleanness introduced into the soul intercepts the visual ray. The [9] LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second power of insight fails ; belief ceases ; and faith is even de- clared to be impossible. The unsullied heart, or even the heart to which repentance has given back its life, finds, on the other hand, that faith is easy and, as it were, quite natural. All things speak to it of God, and invite it to familiar intercourse with Him. In all creatures it beholds His image, and at the close of its meditations it hears His voice. Yet this earthly vision, however consoling, is merely the prelude and the guarantee of the clear vision in heaven. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." The Heavenly Father has in the depth of His divine being a peace that nothing can disturb, and He is forever pouring it abroad for the happiness of His creatures. Thus His true children are those whom nothing can move, since they are at peace with themselves ; and the testimony of their conscience sets them above all life's agitations. This calmness, this serenity, this quiet of mind spreads around them a sweet and peaceful atmos- phere that charms and transforms those who come near them. The children of God, having peace themselves, com- municate it to others. "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake,° for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake ; be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you." Such are the various classes of men to whom blessedness is promised ! Such the Church in her fulness as her Founder conceives her ! Such the story of the elect ! Whoever is humble, patient, afflicted, devoted, detached * St. Augustine, in Ps. xxxiv, 13, says very wisely : " Martyres non facit poena, sed causa. Nam si poena faceret martyres, omnia metalla martyribus plena essent; omnes catenae martyres traherent; omnes qui gladio feriuntur coronarentur. Nemo ergo dicat: Quia patior, Justus sum," etc. [10] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT from the goods of earth, in love with virtue and with duty, and this without noise or violence, is inscribed a citizen of the new kingdom. The Church will receive no others, and if it happened that, at times, the spirit of men should give her any strength other than that of her patience, her charity, her sorrow, her poverty, her mercy, her sanctity, it would be always to the detriment of her true good and future influence. No doubt these assertions read like a series of para- doxes, but not one of them is as strange as that of the Cross. Yet there is no doubt that the folly of the Cross has saved the world. By the theory of happiness, as Jesus expounds it, the Church is to be forever young, flourish- ing, and respected. They love her not who seek to guide her to her triumph by any other path. As if He feared that His thought might not have been understood, or that His hearers might not have been dis- posed to receive it, the Saviour repeats it under another form, stronger and more emphatic.^ "Woe to you that are rich, for you have your consola- tion !" '^ They have the wealth of this present life, and it sufl5ces for them. Their souls feed upon it, find in it their joy, their happiness, their last end. Gold thus takes the place of God. Hence it is a great misfortune. And as worldly success always makes vice easy, it turns out as by a kind of fate that man without God to fear and puff'ed up with vices to gratify, buries himself in the degrad- " We find this in St. Luke. He gives an abridgment of the exposition of the Beatitudes, preserving only four of the eight; and yet he depicts the Saviour uttering four maledictions parallel with the four benedictions He had pronounced. So, in ancient days Israel had been invited to observe the law of God, according to the prescriptions of Moses (Deut. xxvii, 11), in a series of blessings and maledictions, which came down alternately from Garizini and from Ebal. ' This is a proof that the first Beatitude really speaks of poverty, properly so called, or at least of the liberty of the soul so far as the goods of this life are concerned, and not of humility, or of ignorance, or of simplicity of spirit. [11] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second ing life of the senses, and, rejoicing in time, laughs at eternity. "Woe to you that are filled, for you shall hunger!" The license that fills a man with pleasure during this life, procures for him a most awful famine after death. "Woe to you that now laugh, for you shall mourn and weep !" The eternal deception, the terrible awakening in the future Hfe, await the senseless revellers, who now are deafened by their own laughter, and spend their lives in self-contentment, without giving a moment to self-exam- ination or to the knowledge of their own unworthiness. "Woe to you when men shall bless you, for according to these things did their fathers to the false prophets !" When a man accepts such approbation from the world, it is a sign that he flatters human passion instead of check- ing it. To the guilty the Apostle must be unhesitatingly like his conscience, which is severe; like the voice of justice, which binds and holds in chains ; like the sting of remorse, which rouses, persecutes, and tortures ; otherwise he would betray the sacred duties of his ministry. Though men should rise in anger against him, though they curse him, though they persecute him, all this is natural. It is for him not to waver. "Ye are the salt of the earth," exclaims Jesus ; "but if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted.'* It is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men." As salt preserves food from final decomposition, so religious truth, if it endure, is to guard the world against the principles of dissolution which it naturally has within itself, and to save it from barbarism. If truth be behttled, disfigured, obliterated, the salt with- out its savour will be but a false and impotent wisdom ; it will differ not from the mass it was destined to preserve [12] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT and to transform. Men will trample under foot this truth, corrupted like all the rest, and there shall be only universal death. "Ye are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house." The Apostles have not received the dignity of Apostleship to remain un- known ; the disciples who are drawn from every rank and walk of life have not received the light of the Gospel to conceal it. What has been conferred on them is not for themselves, it is also and especially for others. The truth they possess must shine and enlighten those that sit in darkness. Jesus enthusiastically hails this glorious city, the Church, which He beholds already raised to the summit of the mountain and giving light, as a beacon, to man- kind seated at her feet. "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, who is in heaven." The virtuous man gains credence for virtue, and thereby for the moral law and for the lawgiver ; the disciple by his life is his master's pride ; the son by his resemblance ought to make his father known and admired. Jesus intends that the sanctity of His faithful shall be itself an eloquent sermon. Such are the thoughts that serve as a transition to the principal part or body of the discourse: Why is sanctity or justice the fundamental duty of every citizen In the new kingdom.'' Jesus begins by declaring that the basis of justice Is ever the same. To-morrow, as yesterday, it will rest upon the sum of the moral precepts that fill the Old Testament. There is no question here of Mosaic ceremonialism.® Tran- * This observation, absolutely well founded, is in our opinion the best solution of the diflSculty raised concerning the words of Jesus that follow, [13] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second sitory and symbolical, merely, that ceremonialism must have an end. "Do not think," says Jesus, "that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am come not to destroy, but to fulfil. Amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled." Founded in the very essence of things, the moral law has its final motive in God. For it is but an emanation, a ray of the eternal law, as imperishable as God Himself. Hence Jesus suppresses nothing. His mission is to explain it, to put it more clearly before men by posi- tive precepts, to make its spirit felt by disengaging it from the ridiculous superfluities with which the Rabbis have overladen it. As needless and as profitless as were the additions of the Rabbis, so essential and so sacred for aU the faithful shall be the development that Jesus gives forth. New rays of eternal truth turned upon man's eyes are to modify the horizon of our life. The Rabbis have given a mechanical interpretation to the law; Jesus comes to spiritualise it, and, though it will be essentially the same as before, the moral rule of mankind will be henceforth more visibly like the eternal rule that guides God Himself. Therefore, the precepts He will promulgate ^ are of the highest importance ; they If we admit that by the law He means the Mosaic observances, we shall find it difBcnlt to explain His manner of treating the ablutions, and the external purifications, and the question of the Sabbath. Who will venture to say that in practice Jesus has not suppressed even one iota of the legal formalism? To be sure, many think that He meant to maintain INIosaism and all its prescriptions during His hfe. They declare that He could not do otherwise without being imprudent, and that, in default of this. He would not have been understood even by His friends. Finally, it is said. His words on this subject are categorical. Yes, and so much so, indeed, that if we accept them without restriction, Mosaism, with its complex system of laws, would have to survive heaven and earth, which is not the case. As a matter of fact, we see that St. Paul understood them quite diiferently, and, at the proper time, he leads the Apostles and the Church to understand them as he does. " By giving this meaning to the demonstrative roirwv the succession of ideas in Our Lord's discourse is made much more natural. [14] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT will divide the future from the past, Christian from Jew. "He, therefore," continues Jesus, "that shall break one of these least commandments and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven." Man regenerated and called to join his life more closely to that of God, has not the right to decline such an honour. At all events, the more faithful he is in following the lofty way of perfection proposed to him, the more worthy does he prove himself of his Master and of the esteem of the friends of God. "For I tell you, unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." The justice of the Pharisees is wanting in internal truth; it is odiously false. These hypocritical formalists have killed conscience by exagger- ating the importance of legal observances. Against them, once for all, the spirit must be made to prevail over the letter. Therefore, Avhat is to be added to the moral theology of ancient Israel becomes obligatory for all those who desire to be members of the new Church. If they do not observe it, they do not belong to that Church. Let every one open his ears and strengthen his heart. Here follow the conditions of justice or Christian holiness. "You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill, shall be in dan- ger of the judgment.^^ But I say to you that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judg- ^° This judgment is that of the Ancients who sat at the gates of each city to dispense justice, even in capital causes, as is remarked in Deut. x^^i, 2, 5, 8. It is not known for certain whether these judges numbered twenty- three, as some claim, or only seven, as Josephus (Antiq., iv, 8, 14) seems to say. [15] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second ment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca/^ shall be in danger of the Council. And whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the fire of the valley of the sons of Hinnom." ^^ Even though there was, in reahty, a perceptible grada- tion in the three kinds of punishment to which Jesus here alluded,^ ^ it is not clear that there is a corresponding grav- ity in the three faults mentioned. To say raca, or fool, to one's fellow, to be enraged against him, do not consti- tute a very evident difference of guilt. We must take the Master's thought as a whole. Wishing to have us under- stand how reprehensible the sentiment of hatred is. He gives to His language a certain exaggeration, which com- mon sense reduces to its due proportions. Evidently He does not mean to say that the one who insults merits a more terrible punishment than the assassin; the anger that in- sults is not more intense than that which kills. No, His object being to put forth as important that which Judaism regarded as unimportant. He emphasises His thought and says : "According to you, the murderer alone merits pun- ^' The word Raca is a term of contempt, derived from the Hebrew raqaq, to spit upon, and means a despicable man, as St. Chrysostom and Theodoret point out; or better still, according to St. Jerome, from the Syro-Chaldaic reiqah, to be empty, witfwvi brains. Yet it is remarkable that in the Tal- mudic phrases, where this word is found, it appears to be rather an oath than an insult. Thus, Tanchum, fol. 18, col. 7: "Raca," says a Jew to a Pagan, who invites him to partake of pork, "de bestiis etiam mundis apud vos non comedendum." And elsewhere a princess unduly ill-treated by her husband exclaims: "Raca, ego sum filia regis." ^^ The word Teepya is nothing else than the Hebrew name Ghe-Hinnom., or Ghe-bene Hinnom, "the valley of Hinnom," or "the sons of Hinnom," given to the valley which extends along the southern side of Jerusalem and toward the west, and in which faithless Israel had given itself up to the worship of Moloch. (IV Kings xvi, 3.) On the return from the capti\ity, this place of hateful memories was looked upon with aversion and became a sort of dumping-ground, where fire was kept to consume rubbish. This was a figure of hell, which was also called Gehenna. '^ There were three kinds of punishments among the Jews, the sword, stoning to death, and fire. The first was applied by the tribunal of each city, the second by the Sanhedrim, the third by public indignation. [16] BooKii] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT ishment ; according to Me, the man, too, who hates and is angry, will meet with a punishment more terrible than that of earthly tribunals ; for he merits eternal fire." Thus the new law regulates and embraces in its purview not only the acts of man, but his thoughts ; not the work of the hands alone, but the secret sentiments of the heart. Whether anger remains silent in the depths of the soul, or breaks forth upon our lips, Jesus severely condemns it and likens it to homicide ; both proceed from one source, hatred of our fellow. These sentiments of bitterness toward our brothers, with which Judaism scarcely seems to have occupied itself, are so blameworthy before God that by entertaining them one becomes unworthy of heaven's regard. "If, there- fore," the Master goes on, "thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift." God is hon- oured more by the sacrifice of our pride, of our ill-will, of our hatred, than by that of our victories or of our treasures. Besides, it is not by Him alone that we are commanded to make a prompt reconciliation with our offended brother ; our human interests, too, make it our duty. It is of far greater advantage for us to express our regrets and our good dispositions towards him whom we have wounded than to await his claims in justice. We shall gain nothing by a trial, since we are guilty. We have injured him; we are, therefore, his debtor. If we do not make immediate repa- ration to him, the judge will do so himself and will throw us into prison, which is a figure of eternal damnation. "Be at agreement with thy adversary betimes, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest, perhaps, the adversary de- [17] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second liver thee to the judge, and the judge deHver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing." From the supernatural stand-point upon which, above all, Jesus wishes to insist, the truth of these considerations is particularly striking. The man who refuses to be reconciled with his brother, while both are on the road of life, ought to be in fear lest death should cast him at the feet of the supreme Judge, and oblige him to expiate by pains long enduring, perhaps eternal, the wrongs he could so easily have righted during life. This new law is, indeed, severe, but how exalted is its morality ! Passing from the fifth commandment to the sixth, Jesus continues the parallel between the legislation of yesterday and that of to-morrow. "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery .^^ But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart." For to accept the evil suggestion of the flesh, to entertain it, to follow it as far as one can, without the external act, when this latter is impossible, is to commit the crime in the depth of one's soul. Before God the evil is already committed; it matters little that it is not so before men. The heart, therefore, must not be trusted to itself; its desires must be closely watched. "And if thy right eye scandalise thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee ; for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish rather than thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand scandalise thee, cut it off and cast it from thee; for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish rather than that the whole body ^*Exod. XX, 14. [18] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT go into hell." The remedy prescribed is, therefore, as violent as the evil; to break the tenderest bonds, to part from that which has become a portion of one's self, to for- bid the eye to look in order to save the heart from yield- ing, to cut off a member to preserve the body, this is the duty of the children of the new kingdom, the sole means of escaping the eternal payment of justice. "And it hath been said: Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery ; and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth adul- tery." All the grounds for divorce recognised by Moses, which the school of Hillel multiplied at pleasure, as we shall see later, are totally suppressed in the New Law. And rightly so. Marriage has created indissoluble bonds between the man and the woman. Though Moses seemed to have tolerated a relaxation of these ties, the evangelical law restores them in all their strength. Except in the case of unfaithfulness, the man has no right to put away his wife. If he repudiates her, he is responsible for the sins that she may commit, whether by a hfe of misconduct or by taking another husband, with whom she would cer- tainly be guilty of adultery. The deceived husband has the right to expel her who has dishonoured him from his marriage bed, without a care as to what may become of her ; he cannot be responsible for misconduct of which he himself has been the first victim and which has com- promised the very essence of marriage, the union of two in one flesh. But may he take another spouse.'' Of this Jesus says nothing here. He will answer this question later on. Nevertheless, by refusing the adulteress the right to marry again. He wishes not only to punish her for her crime, but also to inform her that a bond exists even [19] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second after her unfaithfulness ; and this bond is upon the hberty of the innocent as well as upon that of the guilty.^ ^ "Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old : Thou shalt not forswear thyself; but thou shalt perform thy oaths to the Lord.^® But I say to you, not to swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God ; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool ; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king; neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black ; but let your speech be yea, yea, nay, nay ; and that which is over and above these is of evil." Such, indeed, is the ideal of the new society that, for each of her members, the deep sentiment of his union with God must be the sole guarantee of the truth of what he says. What need to evoke the name and the presence of God when one knows himself to be perpetually under His eye and in His friendship? Although, in spite of the Saviour's sublime teaching, the evil of the world and the insufficiency of our trust have again authorised the use of the oath in certain circum- stances when it is well to remind man of the watchful severity of Providence, it is none the less true that the Christian Church is the more worthy of her Founder when she proves the religious vitality of all her children by showing herself capable of so sublime a counsel. The oath is in itself a consequence of sin. It is demanded because of the inherent malice of our fallen nature, which makes men distrust one another. And we offer to take it because we are conscious, either of the distrust of others or of *' These words of the Master are improperly construed as a recognition of the man's right to take another wife when he has repudiated the one who deceived him. No such meaning can be discovered in the Gospel text when studied impartially. " Jesus has in mind here several passages of the law : Levit. xix, 12 ; Numbers xxx, 3; DeiU. xxiii, 22-24. [20] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT our own weakness. When the Apostle calls upon God to bear witness to the truth of his words, when God Him- self, speaking to man, seems to take solemn oaths, it is simply the better to dispel all doubt in a suspicious and deceitful heart. Such precautions are, in themselves, superfluous. That the law of Christian simplicity and sincerity might be fully practicable, it were essential that all men should be equally good and virtuous, those who listen as well as those who speak. This is the ideal of social life in the Kingdom of God ; but it is doubtful if this ideal will ever be realised upon earth. Continuing the exposition of His sublime teachings, Jesus rises higher yet, perhaps, in the sphere of that per- fection wherein He desires to establish our life ; so high, indeed, that one wonders if it be possible to follow Him there. Yet we must not forget that a man can be a just man without always attaining the ideal proposed, and that we can derive consolation for not being perfect, from the knowledge that we are at least virtuous. "Ye have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ;^^ but I say to you, not to resist evil ; but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other, and if a man will contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him. And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two ; give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away." Ac- cepted literally, this law of charity would be hopeless and even dangerous. To practise it without regard to circum- " Ezod. xxi, 24, and elsewhere. Such had been the wisdom of the greatest law-givers of antiquity; and since it regulates acts not of private, but of public justice, Jesus no more means to declare it absolutely wrong than, shortly before. He deemed the oath absolutely criminal. He simply proposes His ideal of charity to heroic souls who will be brave enough to realise it in the various circumstances of ordinary Ufa. [21] LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second stances and without discernment would be to encourage evil to its greatest extent. By promulgating it in exag- gerated terms thoroughly in accordance with Oriental tastes, the Saviour wished only to demonstrate to us how patient, how heroic, how superhuman is the kindness, the gentleness, the self-denial that should characterise His true disciples. Thus He Himself instead of turning the left cheek to the servant who had struck Him on the right, merely said: "If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou Me?" But into these words He put just what He demanded by His precept: mildness, affability, resignation, that must give the blush to the wicked for their violence and recall them to better feelings. "Ye have heard that it hath been said : Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." ^® The enemy was he who did not practise the Jewish religion.-^ ^ "But I say to you : Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you ; that ye may be the children of your Father, Who is in heaven, Who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.^^ For if ye love them that love you, what reward shall ye have? Do not even the publicans this ? And if ye salute your breth- '' Levit. xix, 18. The Hebrew word here translated " neighbour" seems to mean in general every man. The Septuagint translates it by tKocrros. In reality, the law did not command men to hate their enemies, but we may say that by its severe prescriptions against all who were not children of Israel, it prompted to that hatred. '' Vide St. Luke x, 27, etc. ; Josephus, Antiq. Jud., xi, 6, 5. Tacitus, Annal., V, 4, 5, says: "Adversus alios omnes hostile odium." Citations from the Talmud sustain this appreciation: Midr. Teh., fol. 26, 4: "Noli gentilibus benevolentiam aut misericordiam exhibere." Lightfoot, in Matth. v, 43, and m Luc. ix, 60, has collected a series of topical texts : " Nationes mundi canibus assimilantur — Populi terrarum non vivunt." ^'^ This thought is found in Seneca also {de Benef., iv, 26) : " Si deos imitaris, da et ingratis beneficia, nam et sceleratis sol oritur, et piratis patent maria." [22] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT ren only, what do 3'e more ? Do not also the heathens this ? Be ye, therefore, perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." What divine novelty in these teachings ! There is not a religious soul in all these nineteen centuries from whom they have not drawn a cry of admiration. How great and beautiful human nature is when it rises to the practice of such amazing perfection ! And how true that the heroes of Christian charity are the living, earthly rep- resentatives of the God of goodness! History is there to tell it, and the veneration of the people to prove it. Such, then, is the foundation on which Christian justice shall rest. But it can reach the ideal which Christ has drawn only by putting on the threefold character of mod- esty, sincerity, and prudence, wliich will heighten its merit and make it beloved of all. "Take heed," says the Master, "that ye do not your justice before men, to be seen by them; otherwise ye shall not have a reward of your Father, Who is in heaven." This maxim implies no contradiction of what has been recom- mended above ; it does not forbid the faithful to let their light shine before the world. For they ought to do every- thing to edify their neighbour and to increase God's glory, but nothing to augment their own personal importance; otherwise they would only waste their time, and, having gained their recompense in the praises of the world, they would have nothing to hope for in requital from heaven. From this principle the Saviour derives the following con- clusions : "Therefore, when thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the syna- gogues and in the streets, that they may be honoured of men. Amen, I say to you, they have received their re- ward." The image which Jesus employs here is an exact portrayal of the vanity of the man who gives alms osten- tatiously. Before he puts it in the poor man's hand, he [23] LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t second makes it shine in the eyes of all ; when he lets it fall into the collector's plate, he makes it resound; when he sends it to him who asks it, he wishes the voice of the public to proclaim his deed abroad. Our age, with its subscription lists, partly reproduces this ridiculous perversity. "When thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee." ^^ The just man finds holy consolation in the knowledge that though he must conceal from others and from himself the good works he does, there is one eye which they cannot escape, the eye of God. God reserves for Himself the right of rewarding that which He forbids to be made manifest to others. Such a debtor abundantly supplies for all the rest. "And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men : Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward." Not to God do they pretend to speak, but to men; they do not pray to heaven, but they parade themselves before the world ; where- fore they have wasted their time. "But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy cham- ber, and, having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret, and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee." The cry of the faithful, uttered in the recollection of the soul before God alone, ascends to heaven the more readily for its freedom from thoughts of earth, and reaches the Father's heart the more surely when no strange noise lessens its eloquent ardour. "And when ye pray, speak not much, as the heathens *' Cicero (TuscuL, ii, 26), had the merit of saying something similar: "Mihi quidem laudibiliora videntur omnia quae sine venditatione et sine populo teste fiimt, nulliun theatrmn conseientia majus est." [24] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT do.^^ For they think that in their much speaking, they may be heard. Be ye not, therefore, hke to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you before ye ask Him." In the behef of the Gentiles the gods were not per- petually present among men, nor cognisant of their vari- ous needs. Man had to call upon them, to inform them, to propitiate them by means of endless arguments. The only true God is ever with us, beholds our misery and awaits only our hearts' movement to shower dowTi upon us His blessings. Hence, with Him, long discourses are needless. He requires but a simple prayer, the natural unworded supplication uttered by our heart. Prayer is a thing of feeling rather than of words, as Jesus will tell us later on ; ^^ and in this sense, we may say, that often the more one talks, the less he prays. "And when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward." It has always been the custom in the East never to appear at table without having carefully bathed and without having perfumed the head. Whoever appears in public with sad face, disordered hair, beard unkempt, and sprinkled with ashes, thus "disfiguring his face," as the Gospel text has it, thereby makes manifest that he has not yet taken his repast; and if the hour of day is ad- vanced, all conclude that he is observing a rigorous fast. This external show of austerity and of penitential life always succeeds in arousing public admiration. But to ^^In Terence (Heatdon., v, 1, 6), a husband says to his wife: "Ohe, jam desine deos, uxor, gratulando obtundere. Illos tuo ex ingenio judicas ut nihil credas intelligere, nisi idem dictum est centies." ^^ Although the Lord's Prayer has been inserted here (St. Matt, vi, 9,), St. Luke (xi, 1^) named the occasion of its pronouncement too positively for us not to follow his information. The Master, according to him, was not before the multitude, but before a limited audience, and He had just prayed when the disciples asked of Him a form of prayer. [25] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second mortify one's self with this end in view is most fooHsh and detestable vanity. After men have praised and paid their homage to this extraordinary asceticism, the hypocrite is only the more filled with himself, and his whole reward lies in this vainglory that he has bought at the price of his fasting. A truly great soul could find no nourishment in so little. "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father, Who is in secret ; and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, will repay thee." From the consideration that our good works must be discreetly hidden even at the risk of seeming less religious than we are, the Saviour naturally -^ passes on to the ad- vice that we must refrain from j udging our neighbour ; for, if our neighbour, in obedience to the Master's pre- cept, conceals the state of religious perfection in which he lives, we are the more frequently in danger of mis- judging him. Here begins the series of lessons on Christian wisdom, which constitutes the third part of the discourse, and is the practical rule of life for those who seek to establish themselves firm and fast in the kingdom. First of all, to exceeding and great humility the true followers of Christ must unite a charity even greater. "Judge not, that ye may not be judged," ^^ says Jesus. "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." There is a great consolation for him who can say : I have been indulgent with others ; they will be _^*The teachings that St. Matthew has put between ch. vi, 19, and ch. vii, 1, seem in oiu- opinion to be distributed better in St. Luke, and we shall find them again later on. ^^ This refers to private life where charity should play the leading part. In public life, justice reserves the right to punish officially all crimes ; other- wise social organisation would be impossible. [26] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT the same with me, if not on earth, surely in heaven. There- fore, if instead of turning our wisdom to the study and criticism of our neighbour's Hfe, we would carefully survey and amend our own, we should prove ourselves most wise. "And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother; Let me cast the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then thou shalt see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." For it is detestable hypocrisy to assume the appearance of inexorable justice, of an ardent zeal against sin, by pursuing the slightest faults in others, when one's self is given up to all the vices. It ill becomes the proud censor whom egotism, avarice, luxury, or anger has blinded, to impart moral teachings to those who are better than he. Yet the good and the bad are not to be treated indis- criminately. To treat all men with equal confidence would not be the part of wisdom. The Apostle, in particular, be- fore he intrusts the truths of the Gospel to his hearers, must know to whom he speaks. In this sense he is authorised to judge. From the evidence and according to his judg- ment, he shall speak or be silent. "Give not that which is holy to dogs ; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and, turn- ing upon you, they rend you." Nothing is worse than to attempt to initiate into heroic virtues, or to teach the maxims of perfection to the vile souls that are all devoted to the gross satisfaction of the senses. They are irritated by the precious stones which they took first for the com- mon grain they feed on, and when they see their error, they trample them beneath their feet. Their deception is trans- formed into fury, and they to whom you sought to do good, [27] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second because they seemed well disposed, turn upon you and bite you with the pretext that you have deceived them. The great law of charity, which, excluding neither pru- dence nor justice, inclines nevertheless to inexhaustible in- dulgence, is to crown these admirable precepts. It is embodied in this aphorism : "All things, therefore, whatso- ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them." This rule is sure and perfectly intelligible to all. "For this is the law and the prophets." No doubt it is not easy to break with a past of egotism and pride, to hurry on bravely to this road of sacrifice and humility. To hate, to curse, to envy, to calumniate, was natural for ancient mankind; and the change for renewed human nature will cost dear. Yet it must be done. "En- ter ye in at the narrow gate," Jesus exclaims, "for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruc- tion, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate and how straitened the way that leadeth unto life; and few there are that find it." There can be no illusion for him who desires to become a disciple of Jesus. The road He marks out is a steep, narrow, painful path, and the gate of the city where Christian life flourishes is difficult of approach. But he who penetrates there, enters into the kingdom of the higher life and into the realms of eternal happiness. If any man teach another doctrine and promise other things he is an impostor and must be distrusted. "Be- ware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, nor can an evil tree bring forth good fruit." Doctrines shape [28] BOOK II] THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT life. By multiplying their teachings, the Pharisees and all ritualistic Judaism produced nothing that attracted. We have only to look at their works ; they are detestable. Hence it would be folly to listen to them. We could pro- duce only what they themselves produce. "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire." This is the sanction. "Where- fore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith to Me: Lord, Lord, shall enter into the King- dom of Heaven; but he that doth the will of My Father, Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." The new religion is not simply one of exterior forms, of invocations and of homage done to its Founder ; even faith, if it be alone, is insufficient. Works are re- quired. To act is as necessary as to believe, and to enter heaven each man must show that he has done the one and the other. "Every one, therefore," Jesus adds, as conclusion to His magnificent discourse, "that heareth these My words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock." Works strengthen faith, and practice is frequently a first means of producing belief. Therefore, he whose mind and con- duct are in keeping with the Master's teachings may be at peace. Thanks to his prudence, neither the trials of life nor even those of death can overturn the solid edifice of his justice and of his piety. Beyond the grave he shall stand with all his works, and he shall be happy for the wisdom he had in knowing that nothing Is solid if actions are not there to sustain convictions. "And every one that hearetK these My words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house [29] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house ; and it fell, and great was the fall thereof." We frequently see believers astonish the world by their faith ; they prophesy, and accomplish miracles ; like an imposing edifice, their public life commands the admiration of all; but we know not the secret of their inmost life, which is far from being in unison with their faith. The foundations which should have been of firm rock do not exist. As long as no crisis occurs, every one is ignorant of the insufficiency of the work; but when the decisive moment has come, the whole tumbles down, and of the proud palace there remains naught but ruins. Jesus leaves His hearers while this impression of eternal woe reserved for the imprudent is still upon them. They seem to hear the tumbling of this edifice among the far-off echoes of eternity. The multitudes w^ere filled with admiration for these instructions uttered with an authority, a clearness, a lofti- ness not to be found among the Jewish doctors. It was evident that the new Master held nothing in common with them. [30] CHAPTER II THE LAW OF MERCY AND THE SIN- FUL AVOMAN IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE Magdala and Its Evil Reputation — ^Where Simon's Hospitality Fails — The Sinner in the Midst op THE Banquet — The Heroism of Her Repentance — Unfavourable Attitude of the Pharisee — Jesus' Question — The Lesson Addressed to Simon — A First Grace Begets Love and Love Calls Forth Pardon — Peace of Soul and the New Life Created BY the Words of Jesus. (St. Luke vii, 36^50.) Jesus, desirous of returning to Capharnaum, turned toward the shores of the lake and came to Magdala, a small borough about three miles north of Tiberias, at the entrance of the plain of Genesareth. The ^Mohammedan village of El-Megdel has retained with its poor huts only the name of ancient Magdala and, perhaps, the remains of the tower (Migdol) from which this name was derived. Yet its site, at the foot of a steep mountain, upon the lake-shore is very picturesque ; and the imagination depicts with ease, even amid the hedges of thorny bushes, the gigantic nettles, the pools of water, and the black stones that now cover the soil, the gracious spectacle once pre- sented in this favoured spot when countless brooks kept alive the fertile orchards, the flowers and fruits and the [31] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second luxuriant vegetation, that made the land of Genesareth, as Josephus says, a veritable earthly paradise. Beneath a sky that will bear comparison with that of the tropics, amid a nature so beautiful, it is not surprising that mor- als were very lax. The Rabbis attribute the destruction of Magdala to the misconduct of its inhabitants.^ It was probably ^ in this town that Jesus was invited to dinner by a Pharisee named Simon. Whether this man had been cured of some infirmity by the Saviour, as might be inferred from the conversation that followed, or had invited the Master to his house through curiosity or vain- glory, it is not easy to say. Jesus accepted his invitation. His reception was rude and scarcely civil. It was diffi- cult for the ancient pride of Pharisaism to bend before one who used but little regard in treating with a sect as haughty as it was powerful. The master of the house failed to give the illustrious guest he received even the most ordinary marks of respect and friendship. It was customary when entering a house as a guest, first to remove the shoes, almost as we remove our hats, and to leave them in the vestibule. The head of the family then kissed his guest upon the cheek, saying to him: "Peace be to you !" He then escorted him to a seat, and servants at once came to bathe his feet. In warm coun- tries, where roads were thick with dust, this bath was most refreshing. In addition to this the Jews looked upon it as a rite of purification which was almost indispensable. ^ Echah Rabhathi, fol. 71, 4, and Taamit H zeros., fol. 69, 1: "Quare destructa est Magdala? Propter scortationem." ^ In relating the story of the repentant sinner, St. Luke neglects to name the town where this touching scene was enacted and it is solely because of the identification of Magdalen as the sinful woman that the name of Magdala has been put forward. The reasons alleged to prove that the town was Naim or Capharnaum are not solid. The incident as found in St. Luke vii, 36, is altogether fragmentary, and has no connection with what precedes or what follows. [32] BOOK II] SIMON THE PHARISEE A special servant, or the master of the house himself, afterwards anointed with fragrant oil the hair and beard of him to whom welcome was accorded. Even to-day the Orientals sprinkle their guests with rose-water. And, finally, when the time came for the repast, the guest was given an opportunity to wash his hands. As we shall soon see, this ceremonial was neglected in great part in the reception given to Jesus. In the meantime the company had seated themselves at table. Following a custom which has more than once afforded us interesting observations in our travels,^ the Orientals freely open the doors of the banquet hall to all the curious who desire to enjoy the sight of the feast. These come and go, and while there may listen to what is said, or even take part in the conversation. No doubt it is thought that the presence of these outsiders adds to the pleasure and the solemnity of the repast. In the crowd that had followed Jesus into the Pharisee's house was a woman whose presence was something of a scandal in a respectable gathering. The unfortunate woman, led on, perhaps, by some one of those sudden, stupefying accidents that all at once cast a pearl amid the offal, had unconsciously reached the very bottom of the pit. A momentary weakness, during which woman is despoiled of that protecting halo called honour, nearly always leads to the greatest disorders. Family, friends, courage aban- doning her, misery, passion, human brutality torturing her, all contribute to beat down the last ramparts that remain standing. The sinner here spoken of (who was, very probably, as we shall see later on, Mary, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus) belonged to an honourable and wealthy family. Nothing had checked her debauch- eries; she astonished the whole town by the story of her ' See Notre Voyage aux Pays Bibliques, vol. ii, p. 211. [33] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second license. Prostituting her youth and her beauty, she had become, in the EvangeHst's words, a pubKc sinner, a harlot.^ What were the memories, what the remorse, what the discourses that succeeded in moving this soul in its aban- donment? Had she heard on the Master's lips one of those merciful utterances capable of exalting our lives more surely than the threats of eternity? Had Jesus surprised her and reprimanded her in the very midst of her follies, in the filth of the public square, when the seven demons, the hideous symbol of all the vices, were tormenting her, and had He with a word put an end to their possession '^ of her, by giving the wretched woman back to herself and to her bitter reflections? This latter is the best explana- tion ^ of what follows, and the best means of understand- ing how, even before she had received forgiveness for her crimes, Magdalen already owed to Jesus a great debt of * The qualification aij.aprct>\6s, which signifies a sinner of any kind whatever means, in the case of a woman, a courtesan or an adulteress, and especially is it so if there be no other designation. In reality a woman's great sin is either conjugal faithlessness or prostitution. And we need not hesitate to believe that the offences of this woman were as numerous as they were humiliating, since Jesus deliberately says of her : avrrjs at a/xapriai ai noWdi, and Simon qualifies her misconduct as extremely scandalous. This, in fact, is the meaning of the words rls /col ttototttj rj ywi}. ^St. Luke viii,_2. * The supposition that Jesus had dehvered Magdalen from seven demons (St. Liike viii, 2) previous to the incident of the feast related in this chapter, logically follows, if we identify this illustrious friend of Jesus with the sinful woman. It cannot be admitted that a demoniac would have been capable of such a demonstration of repentance and of love. It follows then that her conduct during the feast was an act of gratitude. The guests, ignorant of her past, were shocked at her boldness and at Jesus' forbearance. It was then that Jesus, Whose habitual contention in the presence of the Pharisees was that there is no creature so deeply fallen that he cannot be restored by grace and be admitted into the kingdom of God, even before the children of Abraham, expounds to Simon the very appropriate parable of the two debtors. This simple woman owes to Jesus her deliverance from the seven demons (500 pence), the Pharisee was bound to Him by a smaller but undenoted service (50 pence). What a difference in attitude therefore on the part of both disciples toward the Master ! The gratitude of Simon is a small matter, the devotion of INIagdalen reaches the extreme limits of [34] BOOK II] SIMON THE PHARISEE gratitude. It is certain that a deep-felt emotion had stirred her whole being. It is no rare thing, when virtue springs up again in contrite hearts, to see them attain all at once the limits of the most astounding heroism. To their repentance they bring the same intensity of passion they had brought to their crimes. The most profound humility, the most courageous love of God, the most piti- less hatred of self were all suddenly revealed in the poor woman's soul and inspired her conduct on this occasion. Holding in her hands a box of ointment, one of the wonted accessories of a life as lawless as hers, amid heroism. In a way, it was well for her to have fallen so low, since now she has a chance to rise again so high. For what is the issue of it all? The grateful love that Magdalen testifies for Jesus insures for her the pardon of her past sins. The wretched demoniac, who was delivered in body yester- day, regains to-day, together with purification of her soul, the liberty of the children of God. Simon, who deems himself irreproachable, remains just where he had been m his pharisaical righteousness. For a first favour the one feels herself borne on to immense gratitude, the other shows but httle emotion. The result will be that because of her great love, much will be forgiven to her, while for his indifference nothing is said of the other. It is in this presentment of the facts that we must seek a satisfactory solu- tion of certain difficulties found in the Gospel story. If it is not admitted that Jesus had been the benefactor of this sinner before the feast, we must logically conclude from the parable uttered by the Master that Mag- dalen loves becaiise she is pardoned, and not, as Jesus clearly says later, that she is pardoned because she has loved. If the five hundred pence re- mitted represented, not the expulsion of the seven demons, but the remission of her sins, we must acknowledge that Magdalen's love is the consequence, not the cause, of her absolution. But, in that case, what shall we say of the explicit declaration on the part of Jesus: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much" ? The cause of her pardon is clearly said to be her penitent love ; her absolution is the consequence. For it is impossible to deprive the word '6ri of its sense of causality. The aorist i\yairi\ffe, besides, is there to imply that the love preceded the pardon, as a cause pre- cedes the effect. There would, therefore, be a flagrant contradiction between Jesus' parable and His declaration if INIagdalen had not been indebted to the Master pre\ious to the feast. It disappears if she was already bound to Him. It is to be regretted, no doubt, that St. Luke did not express all that was needed to clear away this difficulty. But we have here another instance of the great respect with which he treated the fragmentary narratives which were at hand in tlie preparation of his Gospel. The identii'cation of Magdalen with the sinful woman was not in the narrative, and hn was un- willing to insert it. [35] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second the baleful smiles and humiliating words that greeted her as she passed, she broke through the crowd and reached the banquet-hall. On her brow the blush of shame had replaced the impudent stare of vice, her downcast eye was nothing bold, her gait was that of a victim advancing to the sacrifice. But her past had been so degrading that no one noticed her present change. Nothing is more pain- ful, to one who has by force of energy effected one's own moral resurrection, than entrance among surroundings that are cold, sceptical, and licentious, where no credit is given for victory in the struggle, but where, rather, un- feeling and inconsiderate remarks drive one back again into the past from which he has completely emerged. After the first movement of malignant surprise, as they beheld the woman approach Jesus, the company wondered what was going to happen. They were unaware that their Guest had already performed a service for her. The ancients, it is well known, took their meals reclin- ing, resting upon the left arm, while their unsan- dalled feet were concealed behind the triclinium. It was there, undetected by the Master's gaze, but beneath the eyes of all the assembly, that Magdalen fell upon her knees. Overwhelmed with sorrow, shame, and emotion, she had not the courage to utter a single word; but her love, her contrition, and her faith were spoken in her every act. Her eyes, which had once been guilty of so many evil glances, extinguishing what was left of their impure flame, had become like a twin-fountain of tears religiously be- dewing the Saviour's feet ; her hair, which had once been the crown of her wicked vanity, and which was even yet redolent of luxuriousness, fell unkempt, as if to give em- phasis to the public avowal of her misconduct ; ^ she used ^ The priest loosened the Jewess' hair before making her drink the bitter water when she had been guilty of unchaslity. In a country whose women [36] BOOK 11] SIMON THE PHARISEE it to wipe the feet which she bathed with her tears. Her guilty hps were thus purified by contact with virginal flesh, and her heart was breaking in sobs of repentance and of love for God. Then she opened the box of oint- ment, fit symbol of her own soul, which with all its newly acquired virtues she was desirous of pouring forth with- out reserve before Jesus, and she began to anoint His feet, clasping them the while most tenderly. Such a manifestation of repentance must have been all the more astonishing to the assembly, since He to Whom it was made seemed absolutely insensible to it. In the proud, hard soul of the Pharisee it aroused only this un- kind reflection: "If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, that she is a sinner." The touch of a pub- lic sinner, according to the teaching of the Pharisees, was as foul as that of the leper.^ Such are the sad conse- quences of formalism ! The only thought that strikes Simon before a spectacle so sublime is that the Master is in danger of contracting a legal impurity ! A cutting criticism, at once of Jesus and of the heroic penitent, is all that he can find in his soul. As he imagines that the Master knows not what sort of creature the woman is, he must be taught that he does not know what manner of man he is himself. "Simon," said the Saviour, breaking the silence at last, "I have somewhat to say to thee." "Master, say it," responded the Pharisee. And after these phrases of mere civility, Jesus began. He always kept the head covered, unkempt hair was a sign of great humiliation or of profound grief. Cf. in the Talmud, Sot, f. 5, 1 ; III Mace, i, 9. Pro- fane history relates, also, of pagan women, that in times of public calamity they went to wash with their tears and to wipe with their hair the threshold of the temples, and that the master at times wiped his hands in the hair of the slaves who served him. ^"Quanto spatio a meretrice recedendum est? R. Chasda respondet: Ad quatuor cubitos." Schoettgen, Hor. Hebr., i, p. 348. [37] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second desired to explain this woman's attitude by recalling that she was His debtor. For some reason, which we are not familiar with, Simon, also, was under obHgations to Jesus ; the indebtedness, however, was less than that of Magdalen. Hence the natural sense of the parable that follows. "A certain creditor had two debtors ; the one owed five hun- dred pence, the other fifty. And whereas they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which, there- fore, of the twain loveth him most.?" Simon, answering, said: "I suppose he to whom he forgave most." And He said to him: "Thou hast judged rightly."^ From that moment the outburst of feeling on the part of the sinful woman is understood. It must be looked upon as the expression of great gratitude, which, upheld by her faith,^*^ now draws upon her another favour from Jesus. For, as He turned toward Magdalen, pointing to her, at the same time, with a gesture of sympathy, He observed: "Dost thou see this woman.'' I entered into thy house, thou gavest INIe no water for My feet ; but she with tears hath washed My feet, and with her hair hath wiped them. Thou gavest Me no kiss, but she, since she came in, hath not ceased to kiss My feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but she with ointment hath anointed My feet. Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, be- cause she hath loved much." There is the crowning grace of divine mercy. And, turning again to Simon, Jesus adds : "But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less." So it happens that those who have fallen low, by the very fact that they rise again through co-operation with a first grace, may in the outburst of their gratitude rise to sublime heights ; while cold natures, because they are all but blame- ' This word of the Master, opdus eKpivas, recalls the irdvv opdws of the Socratic Dialogues. ^° From verse 50, it is evident that for Magdalen faith was the first element of salvation; love was the second. [38] BooKii] SIMON THE PHARISEE less, will remain fixed in their condition of half-virtue. The lesson goes straight to the conscience of all those who look down upon sinners, and suspect not that by a move- ment of the soul these can rise on the wings of repentant love not merely to justice, but even to a perfection which they themselves may never attain. The mainspring of the moral and religious life being in the heart, he will ap- proach the nearest to God who can love the most. The point from which one starts matters little; the point reached is the thing to consider. To Simon nothing is said of his own soul or of his need of spiritual regeneration. To the sinful woman Jesus ad- dresses this consoling remark: "Thy sins are forgiven thee." She, therefore, is done with sin ; the divine mercy with a word has effaced the whole shameful past that weighed down upon her head. Whom God pardons, shall men still blame .^ He it is Who had borne the offence; He it is Who, forgetting that same, enjoins upon all to think of it no more. In this identification of Jesus with God Who forgives, there was an evident proof that personally He deemed Himself God like His Father, and those present, once again, were shocked. But He, unmoved, as if He heard not their murmurings, simply said to the humbled woman : "Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace." ■'■■'• ^' To insist on identifying this account with St. Matth. xxvi, 6; St. Mark xiv, 3 ; St. John xii, 4, is to lose sight of those differences of place, time, and persons which forbid us to consider as one two distinct anointings. The present one, it is true, is given by St. Luke alone, while he, in turn, passes over those of the other three. In St. Luke's account we are in Galilee, almost at the beginning of the Messianic ministry, and the woman in the scene is a stranger to the house — Simon supposes that she is unknown to Jesus — of unsavoury reputation in the town, inspiring the guests with scorn. Later we shall be at Bethany in Judea at the gates of Jerusalem, within six days of the fatal Passover, and the anointing will be done in quite a different manner, by a person whom Jesus knew because He had received hospitality at her house, and who, besides, appeared to be at the banquet [39] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second She Is no longer the lost woman. Because she has believed, the Good Shepherd has taken her to Himself, has removed her outcast estate, has clothed her with new womanhood. On the firm ground of righteousness, where He has just established her, there is no more remorse for her, no more moral suffering, but the peace that comes of obedience and the joy of union with God. ]\Iagdalen hav- ing received the peace of the Lord, feels already spring- ing in her heart a new life and a savour of unexpected chastity. Her happiness radiates from out her tears. "Go," the IMaster says ; her love makes reply : "I will abide with Him Who hath given me life." Magdalen, in truth, never after left Jesus' side. Through her sorrow and her virtues she became the blessed and saintly friend of her Saviour. as if in her own home with the members of her family. Finally and most important of all, the results of the two anointings are very dissimilar. In the first, the Master grants a solemn pardon to a bravely repentant sinner. lu the second, He praises a friend, and announces His own approaching death. [40] CHAPTER in CONTROVERSY WITH THE PHARISEES The Pharisees Precede Jesus to Capharnaum to Calumniate Him — He Is in League with Beelzebub — His Crushing Replies — The Defeat of the Strong Man — His Terrible Revenge — The Sin against the Holy Ghost — Enthusiasm of the Mul- titude— Asking for a Sign from Heaven — The Sign of Jonas — In the Judgment, the Queen of Saba and the Ninevites Will Confound the Chil- dren OF Israel — The Eye of the Soul — Faith Creates Kinship with Jesus. (St. Mark iii, 19-35; St. Matthew xii, 22-50; St. Luke xi, 17-36.) From this sympathetic mercy which Jesus has for fallen but repentant souls, compared with His severe attitude toward pharisaical pride, one could easily conclude that His preference was for the unfortunate and the humble. He found in them the first element of moral resurrection : contempt of self and courage for the most difficult sacri- fices. It is all that His grace demanded for the super- natural rebirth of life. But if to consort with sinners was a crime, to prefer these sinners to the Pharisees must have seemed an abom- ination. They were not slow to make Him feel it cruelly. [41] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second For from that moment the opposition of the Pharisees in Galilee became particularly vigorous and daring. The sermon on the Mount had produced upon the representa- tives of the old formalism the eifect of a declaration of principles absolutely subversive and revolutionary. The welcome accorded to sinners now filled the measure of His opposition, and it was decided that no further caution was required. Thus, when the Master, followed by His disciples, made His entrance into Capharnaum, He found that His ad- versaries had preceded Him to that place in order to cir- cumvent Him by their calumnious accusations. To their mind. His works were performed through the help of the devil. No attack could be more brutal or more unskilful. It did not check the people, at the first report of His arrival, from hurrying in crowds to the house where He had stopped.^ This was probably Peter's house, a small dwelling in which we have already seen a tumultuous gath- ering. The welcome, according to St. Mark, was so en- thusiastic that neither Jesus nor His disciples had time to eat even a morsel of bread. They had brought Him one possessed, who was both blind and dumb: the Master restored to him both sight and speech. The multitude, happy at seeing the young Prophet give so crushing a retort to the calumnies of His adversaries, were in a state of moral exaltation, of joy, of wonderment, which seemed to drive them beyond all self-control, and they cried out: "Is not this the Son of David.?" To this loud acclaim, the jealous fury of the Scribes and Pharisees made answer: "This man casteth not out ' St. Mark iii, 20, in saying that the crowd came again, ird\iv, to the house, seems to suppose that it is the same place where the paralytic had been cured (ii, 1,2), that is, the house in which Jesus lodged at Capharnaum, oIkos or oIkIu, without the article, viz., Peter's house, where He had already worked so many prodigies (i, 29-34). [42] BOOK II] PHARISEES devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils." ^ No sup- position could be less rational ; but who is ignorant of the blind credulity of a mob? The most extravagant contra- dictions, uttered with assurance, are frequently the very ones that produce the liveliest impression. Provided one knows how to shout loud enough, he can gain acceptance for them. Jesus permitted His enemies to go no farther. Checking them with the strength of simple common-sense, He asked them: "How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom can- not stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan be risen up against himself, he is divided and cannot stand, but hath an end." This is simple reasoning; it crushes by its truth and is absolutely irrefutable. A self-destroying Satan is an absurdity. Moreover, if this argument is not enough. He has an- other, that goes farther home because it is personal : "Now if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your chil- dren ^ cast them out ? Therefore, they shall be your ^ Interpreters are divided as to the meaning of the name here given to the prince of the demons. St. Jerome, who gives Beelzebub, says that this name, formerly given to the god of the Accaronites {IV Kings i, 2), signifies the god of flies, either because the Accaronites beUeved he had the power of delivering them from the flies that devastated the country (Pliny, Hist. Xat., iv, 9), or because the Jews thus maliciously compared their neighbours' god, the god of flies, with their own God, Who was the God of gods. See, also, Lenormant, La Divination, p. 95, the Babylonians' behef in the di\n'ning virtue of flies. But the most common reading was Beelzehovl, which signifies god of^ offal. For the Jews qualified idolatry as filth, ofi'al, etc., and for the Rabbis to take part in idolatrous worship was extendere manus in stercorario. Satan was the king of idolatry (Lightfoot, Hor. Hehr., in Matth. xii, 24). Some exegetes prefer to see in Beelzehoid {Baal in Chaldaic, Beet, by contrac- tion Bel, the Lord, and Zehovl, of the dwelling) the name given by the Phoe- nicians to their sim-god, master of the heavenly spheres. Cf. Movers, Phonizier, i, p. 260. ^ Before the time of Jesus and without reference to Him, Judaism had exorcists who pretended to cast out evil spirits by certain rather fantastic rites. {St. Luke ix, 49; Acts xix, 13; Antiq., viii, 2, 5, and vii, 6, 3.) We are free to doubt the reahty of this power. What Josephus tells of the [43] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second judges." For it was, indeed, only too palpably the out- come of partiality to attribute, without any motive, the latter's works to God and the works of Jesus to the demon. "But if I," continues the Saviour, "by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon you. Or how can any one enter into the house of the strong and rifle his goods, unless he first bind the strong? And then he will rifle his house. When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are in peace which he possesseth. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him, he will take away all his armour wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils." Such has been the lot of Satan. Having attained the mastery of the world at the very beginning, he reigned over it as over his own house ; mankind had erected altars and had built tem- ples to him. In succession, material creation, man's body, and finally man's soul had become his property. Every- thing underwent not only his moral influence in the habit of evil, but even his physical violent action, in obsession and possession. But now a Stronger than he is come. Who is the Son of God. He begins by vanquishing Satan and binding him, and, then advancing into what had become the house of the devil, He seizes upon all that is there, and that had formerly been His own legitimate property. He takes it, and the vanquished cannot prevent Him, for the Kingdom of God has begun. Such, figuratively, is the history of the Redemption, of the aggressive turning of good against evil, of God against the demon, which they behold and at which they are scandalised. magician Eleazar looks more like jugglery than like genuine exorcism. The Talmud, Taneh., fol. 70, I, speaks of exorcists who, invoking the names of David and Solomon, enveloped the sick with smoke by burning certain roots, and thus drove out evil spirits. Jesus, citing the example of the Jewish Rabbis, by no means intends to compare their works with His own. He argues not from what these magicians do, but from what the Pharisees think they can do. [44] BOOK II] PHARISEES After this argumentation, which was absolutely con- clusive against the calumnies of His adversaries, Jesus turned to those of the multitude who, having suddenly grown chill in His regard, held a reserved and almost in- different attitude, and exclaimed : "He that is not with Me is against Me ; and he that gathereth not with Me scatter- eth." Once having known the Saviour, it is no longer possible to be indifferent toward Him. Not to be His friend is to declare one's self His enemy ; not to make with Him the conquest of eternal life is to perish in misery. Such will be the misfortune of those whom grace has once enlightened, and whom doubt has turned cold again. Satan has formidable attacks yet to make. He bides his time; it is when the heart is troubled, or when the mind is groping in darkness, that he will seize the favourable chance, and take again with interest that which he had lost. "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water "* seeking rest ; and, not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and, entering in, they dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first." Thus all that God had accom- plished by way of cleansing a soul of its past and of adorn- ing it with new virtues and serious habits, is of no avail. For having remained a moment vacant — that is, without Jesus Christ, Whom doubt has caused to flee — Satan has entered in once more in triumph. His victory will proba- bly be final. So great is the crime of those who, by their daring denials, disturb the faith of believers and lead them * The common opinion was that the desert was the ordinary dwelling-place of demons. (Job xxx, 3; Bar. iv, 35; Apoc. xviii, 2, etc.) Exiled from eternal happiness in the invisible world, it was supposed that they must like- wise be banished from the joys of creation in the visible world. [45] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second on to ruin. "I say to you," says Jesus, "every sin and every blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven." The Holy Ghost completes in us the full and perfect manifestation of divine truth. He is the light, the evidence that makes God visi- ble to the human conscience. To rebel against this light, to deny this evidence, is moral suicide for man. By this inexcusable act of malice we deaden all religious feeling in our hearts, and deliver ourselves to eternal blindness. "Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come." In doubting the reality of the divine nature of Jesus or of His mission, man may be misled without any obsti- nate or hateful malice, by a mere aberration of mind or by the influence of certain prejudices that keep him from seeing the light. He is certainly culpable, but his fault is not too great to be forgiven. He has not deliberately intercepted the rays of divine light by a criminal and cold calculation. At the appointed time, when his heart is purer and his mind less troubled, heavenly light may illu- mine his soul. All is not lost. The wicked man, on the contrary, who, though he sees clearly and without doubt the work of the Holy Ghost, has even then through hatred pronounced it to be the work of Satan, is unworthy of the light of heavenly signs. He stubbornly prefers night, falsehood, evil ; he shall have them forever. God pardons weakness of the heart, illusions of the mind, even the wan- derings due to pride in those who do not coase to seek a better state ; but pure malice of the soul He never for- gives, because it removes from the soul all possibility of doing anything to deserve forgiveness. "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree evil and its [46] BOOK II] PHARISEES fruit evil. For by the fruit the tree is knoAvn." If the casting out of demons, the healing of the sick, the per- formance of miracles are good works, it must be admitted that the agent of these good works is good himself, and that he cannot be confused with Satan, the horrible per- sonification of evil. Or, if one is absolutely desirous of regarding Satan as the cause of all these wonders, he must conclude that the wonders themselves are evil. To say that the tree can be good and its fruit evil, or that the fruit can be good and the tree evil, is to deny evidence, it is blasphemy, and inexcusable sin. That is the crime of Jesus' calumniators. "Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things.'"' cries the indignant Master. "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of a good treasure bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of an evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justi- fied and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." The energy with which Jesus hurled all this in the face of the Pharisees amazed all present. They were not aware that their gentle Master was capable of such outbursts of voice, such power of long-restrained indignation ; and the Pharisees, in amazement, their masks torn from them by His burning words, could only say : "He is become mad." ^ At this the multitude hastened to Him in even greater num- bers, and Jesus took the occasion to accentuate His tri- umph by continuing to humiliate His enemies with His overwhelming retorts. His success was such that the peo- ^ The " multitude " is undoubtedly the subject of f\eyov and " Jesus " the subject of ^leVrrj. This latter verb signifies a moral exaltation which seems to deprive man of self-control and to render him insane. [47] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second pie no longer withheld their admiration; and a certain woman, speaking aloud for all, exclaimed: "Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck !" Jesus' reply was, "Yea, rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it." The Pharisees, in order to regain the ground they had lost and to check the ap- plause of the multitude, now gave utterance to the follow- ing challenge: "Master, we would see a sign from thee." His miracles done on earth appear to them to be open to suspicion. They judge that they may be the work of magic, or the result of some diabolical intervention. Let them be seen in the heavens, and they will agree that they are conclusive, for then they will be from on high, not from below. Then will they truly be heavenly signs, and no longer to be contested. "An evil and adulterous genera- tion," answered Jesus, "seeketh a sign, ^nd a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was in the whale's belly three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." ® Such was His reply to the Pharisees. The true sign of Jonas to the Ninevites was his preaching: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed." The sign that Jesus gives to Israel is the announcement of His approaching destruction. The prophet's menace suffices for the Ninevites. That of Jesus means nothing to the Jews. He will, therefore, give them one more sign also plainly analogous to that of Jonas, more conclusive than any, but which, however, shall leave the Jewish people still obstinate in their unbelief. Not on ' As a matter of fact Our Lord did not pass three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He was among the dead only one day and two nights. Since in reahty Jesus' stay in the tomb began the evening before the Sabbath and ended the morning after, the Jews, following their custom, rightfully expressed this space of time in round numbers. See I Kings xxx, 12; II Paralip. x, 5 ; compare with xxvi, 12. [48] BOOK II] PHARISEES high but In the abyss will He show them His sign. Sam- uel had bidden the thunder resound in defiance of the laws of nature; Ehas had drawn down fire from heaven; the Son of ]VIan has kept for Himself the stifling of death itself in the grave by His glorious resurrection. "For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man also be to this generation." Jonas, by his miraculous escape from death, served to recall the Ninevites to penance and to salvation. Ought not Jesus' resurrection to be of like efficacy for Israel.? The Saviour goes on: "The Queen of the south shall rise in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them ; because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold more than Solomon here." What was Solomon's knowledge when compared with the works and discourses of Jesus Christ.'* And yet the Queen of Saba, seeking no extraordinary sign from heaven, hastened over long dis- tances and through the midst of dangers to listen to the heir of David. What, then, shall be the confusion of the Jews for not having recognised the wisdom of the INIes- siah, which was far more marvellous, and for having de- manded proof of Him in signs ! But the sign once given by His resurrection, far stranger shall it be to see Israel even yet resist. "The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, be- cause they did penance at the preaching of Jonas, and be- hold more than Jonas here." What, then, can be the cause of this strange obstinacy in the face of truth.? Jesus tells it clearly. "The light of thy body is thy eye. If thy eye be single, thy whole body also will be full of light, but if it be evil, thy body also will be full of darkness." By the eye, indeed, each of our members sees and is guided. The eye itself receives its light from without, but it receives it only in so far as [49] LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second it itself is pure and sound. So, too, for the interior man there is an eye, the heart, by which the intellect and will are enlightened. If the heart be pure, light is abundant; if it be diseased, depraved, light is feeble, inconstant, and is even withdrawn altogether to leave us in darkest and most perilous night. "Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness." This is the greatest woe that can come to man. Vainly shall he struggle in the midst of the most striking of divine revelations ; he shall receive no light, because his spiritual eye is incapable of being penetrated. Such is the fate of the Pharisees. Their hearts are not pure; they can see nothing, and all the heavenly signs they may ask, if granted, would not make them see more. They must needs first cleanse their soul's eye, put off their pride, their hypocrisy, their secret sins, their formalist prejudices; then naturally they shall behold the truth, and shall not ask a needless super- abundance of light. Meanwhile, Jesus' family had been made anxious by the rumours that were spreading concerning the tumult of the gathering; and, fearing the danger He might incur by braving a faction no less fanatical than powerful, they hurried to find Him in order to lead Him away. The presence of Mary on this occasion proves that His relatives had no intention of taking Him away by main force, as some have concluded from St. Mark's expression.'' They wished merely to induce Him to abandon so perilous a position, by reminding Him that neither He nor His disciples had yet had time to take their repast. The crowd was so dense that the family had to convey their wish to Him by means of intermediaries. They said to Him: "Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand with- ' *E^rj\0ov Kpa.Tri(Tai a\>r6v. [50] BOOK II] PHARISEES out, seeking thee." * But Jesus, intent on proving that there was a relationship truer, more intimate, and dearer to Him than any earthly bond, merely replied: "Who is My mother and who are My brethren?" And, looking about Him, He stretched His hand out toward all the dis- ciples who were eager to receive His instructions, and ex- claimed : "Behold My mother and My brethren. For who- soever shall do the will of My Father that is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister and mother!" He who does the Father's will casts his own life into the very current of the life divine. The bond of perfect dependence which he thus establishes between himself and the Father constitutes a real sonship. From this point of view he becomes truly the brother of Jesus. Such rela- tionship, in that it proceeds from the heavenly Father, is only the more intimate and the more glorious. The Mas- ter rightly places it before every other. For is not the soul's life more than the life of the body ? Many of His hearers did not comprehend, the depth of what He said. Through all the ages His words have stirred up enthusiasm, and have made him who received and pondered them capable of any sacrifice. Can too much be given for the title of nobility that has made us sons of God and brothers of Jesus Christ ? ' The absence of Josepli, who is not even mentioned on this occasion, is another proof of the opinion that he was dead. [51] CHAPTER IV THE PARABLES ON THE SHORES OF THE LAKE Why Jesus Begins to Speak in Parables — The Nature OF THE Parable — The Seed-Sowing and Varieties of Soil — The Master's Detailed Explanation — A Complementary Parable in St. Mark — The Grain of Mustard-Seed — The Leaven — The Cockle Among the Wheat — Jesus' Explanation — The Treasure — The Precious Stone — The Net and the Definitive Separation of the Good from the Wicked — The True Teacher, for the Sake of His Hearers, Varies His Manner of Teaching. (St. Matthew xiii, 1-53; St. Mark iv, 1-34; St. Luke viii, 4-18, and xiii, 18-21.) Again did Jesus come forth victorious from the conflict, yet it was becoming evident that His enemies would in- crease their hostihty more and more. A crowd is a centre open to all; the evil-disposed are always able to conceal themselves therein, and by their malevolent hints have the power to destroy what the good have built up by force of zeal and patience. Jesus, therefore, perceived the need, while continuing to speak to all, of keeping the final word of His teaching for those alone who were worthy of know- [52] BOOK 11] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE ing it. The philosophers of old had themselves divided their auditors into two distinct categories,^ and in addi- tion to their public (exoteric) teaching, they were pleased to give a private (esoteric) teaching also. Friends deserve some preference. Besides, what Jesus did, took from no one the right to enter, with slight effort, into His whole thought. Truth, as it fell from His lips veiled in pleas- ing figures, could not, for that reason, be any the less intelligible. Between friends and enemies He made this sole difference, that to the former He proposed to explain His thought in full, if they should prove too dull to per- ceive it, while to the latter He left the care of seeking it by themselves and the danger of not finding it. This is why the Saviour began to speak in parables, and this kind of teaching becomes henceforward His ordinary method of expounding the mysteries of the kingdom of God. St. Matthew observes that thus He fulfilled the word of the prophet : "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world." ^ The parable, as the w^ord indicates,^ is a kind of problem given to those present. Any problem may conceal the truth from natures too lazy to seek it, but the parable has the advantage of fixing it firmly in the mind of him who has succeeded in understanding it. To pro- duce a parable, some phenomenon of nature or some inci- dent of life was taken, at haphazard, and, in the narra- tion, concealed as beneath a material ■* veil, was the super- natural and transcendent idea meant to be inculcated. ' Aulus-Gellius, A''. A., xx, 4, tells this of Aristotle. ^ Ps. bocvii, 2. Here again the Evangelist gives a prophetic sense to the canticle of Asaph the Seer (II Paralip. xxix, 30), which ought none the less, it would seem, to be taken in a literal sense. ^ Tlapa^dWw signifies / propose, I place side by side. Hence " parable," a problem or a juxtaposition of figiu-e and truth. *The word iifioios or dixoideri, found at the beginning of each parable in the Gospel, tells clearly enough what a parable is ; it is a similitude. [53] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second The parable, then, differs not only from the fable, but from the allegory as well. The fable is less pretentious in scope, while in form it pays such slight regard to the literal truth that it describes inanimate objects as though they were endowed with sense, and makes even animals talk. In the allegory the symbol identifies itself with the reality symbolised, as when Jesus says allegorically : I am the Door ; or, I am the Good Shepherd ; whereas in the parable there is always found some further fact apart from the moral teaching which the parabolist has in view. The king, the wheat, the tares, for instance, are things that have a truth of their own independently of the lesson to which they compel attention. In a word, they serve as a term of comparison, and suggest, under the guise of forms drawn from the world about one, the striking moral to be en- forced. The genius of the Orientals has always encour- aged the language of parable ; and it must be acknowledged that it has happily employed it whenever it has succeeded in putting off its own natural exuberance, and has thus avoided useless details. Unity of subject here, as every- where else, must be maintained ; those points of the narra- tion alone are to be put prominently in evidence which are to give a transparent form to the truth as proposed.^ As a parable is not an enigma, he who proposes one, with the idea of arousing the attention of his hearers without fatiguing it, ought to permit them to take a pro- visional glimpse of the line of development he intends to follow in order that they may seize the thought half -veiled, as it were. It is, therefore, usual to announce at the very beginning the idea that is to be explained in parabolic form. Confronted with these two data, the known and the •See Trench, Notes on the Parables (London, 1870); B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ (London, 1882) ; Goebel, Die Parabeln Jesu (Gotha, 1880). [54] BooKu] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE enigmatic, indolent minds, or those of evil intent, are dis- heartened or go astray, while upright, generous natures feel their attention roused, and set themselves actively to the task which will be completed later by an authorised explanation, if this be needed. Imagination, feeling, in- tellectual activity are all excited at once, and it may be said that through them the great doors of the soul are opened, and the most abstract doctrines enter in to be graven the more surely for having been the more happily clothed in sensual and attractive forms. Having recourse, therefore, to this interesting method of teaching, the Saviour, with wise forethought, will make the necessary selection among His hearers, and will cause these souls of earth to be per- meated with the sublime thoughts of heaven. His desire must have been to define the present and the future history of God's Kingdom, its victorious struggles against evil no less than its pacific, moral, and, con- trary to the Jewish notions of the time, thoroughly spirit- ual character. He does this in a series of seven parables, transmitted to us by St. Matthew. This number seven, the sum of three, the number of the divinity, and four, that of humanity, is not without a mystic meaning. Taken as a marvellous whole, these parables show us God uniting Him- self to man by His word and by His grace in order to es- tablish, in spite of all obstacles, the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. They were not set forth in quick succession. That would have resulted in an insurmountable obstacle for those minds which already had some difficulty in grasp- ing these problems, one after the other, notwithstanding the detailed solutions by which they had been followed. Jesus had to proceed with greater tact, and, though the points at which He paused are not marked in St. Matthew, we may conclude from a hint in St. Mark ^ that, after hav- • St. Mark iv, 10. £55] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second ing put forward one parable, the Master always granted His disciples time to search patiently for its hidden mean- ing. At any rate, the first Synoptic is the only one who thus places them in a group of seven. The second mentions only two, and adds a third which is not in the others. The third Synoptic inserts the parable of the Sower here, but places those of the Mustard-Seed and the Leaven later on. That He might be the better understood by the multi- tude, and be free to withdraw at will. He once more entered a boat ; from which, fixing His gaze on the numerous audi- ence that was stretched out along the shore, He thus began : "Behold the sower went out to sow, and whilst he sow- eth some fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and ate it up. And other some fell upon stony ground where it had not much earth ; and it shot up immediately, because it had no depth of earth; and when the sun was risen, it was scorched ; and because it had no root, it with- ered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it ; and it yielded no fruit. And some fell upon good ground and brought forth good fruit, that grew up, and increased and yielded, one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundred." ^ Then, raising His voice, the Master spoke His enigmatic summons to the minds of all : "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear !" He has described the varying results of the divine word in souls. Such a subject was well worth the most serious study. His hearers must seek in themselves the applica- tion of this parable; and, as the future of the sowing depends on the nature of the soil, it is of supreme import- ance that each one should endeavour to remove everything likely to hinder the fecundation and full development of the divine germ. Among these instances of sterility it ^ St. Mark iv, 3-9. [56] BOOK II] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE will be observed that the first proceeds from two causes, both of which are exterior : the feet of the passers-by who trod upon the seed, and the birds of the air that devoured it. The second, also, has two causes, the one exterior, the heat of the sun, and the other interior, the want of depth of vegetable mould. The third has but one cause, and that wholly interior : the soil is filled with other seeds. There is real fertility only when the earth is neither so hard as practically to be impenetrable, nor so friable as to retard growth, nor so mixed with foreign matter as to destroy all seminal Hfe, but affords good soil free and well prepared. It is clear that this classification corresponded to the four categories of souls which Jesus discerned among His hearers. By an inspiration as happy as it was natural. He had likened them to the fields of varying degrees of fertility which He saw upon the hillsides. It was from that source that the figure came that clothed His thought and helped to point His parable. It embodied a fresh and living idea which He cast into the midst of the attentive multitude. He then withdrew and left them time to dis- cover its real meaning. The disciples did not weary their minds with this work. Their perspicacity, besides, was only commonplace. But when they were alone with the Master, they asked Him both the reason for His new manner of teaching, and the explanation of what they had just heard. To their first question Jesus responded: "To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to the others it is not given. For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound ; but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath. Therefore, do I speak to them in parables, to the end that, seeing they may perceive not, and hearing they may hear [57] LIFE OF CH-RIST [part second and not understand. So shall the prophecy of Isaias be fulfilled in them, who saith: 'By hearing you shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under- stand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.' " « Such, in truth, is the consequence of man's malice and of God's justice. When the sinner wilfully shuts his heart against divine truth, a twofold chastisement falls upon him: his eye is darkened and he sees not even the most brilliant light, or, if he sees it, he does not perceive it. God leaves him, and so despoils the soul of whatever capacity is still left it for the further gift of supernatural life. In this manner is produced the moral phenomenon kno^Ti as hardening or palsy of the heart. It is not by an anterior act of God's will, as might be thought from the text of Isaias, nor by a final and absolute act, but by a conditional decree, a judgment of His providence, that all this happens. And so the man who has repudiated conversion becomes, by the very spectacle of his moral crassness, a warning that others may profit by. If Jesus inaugurates a new method of instruction, it is because the world was unwilling to understand even His clearer dis- courses. He withdraws the light; it is the beginning of a punishment which is as yet neither complete nor final. The Jews might still by an effort be able to pierce the surface of the parable, and entreat the divine mercy to return to them in the full manifestation of its truth. If ^ Isa. vi, 9 et seq. This text is quoted by St. Matthew alone, and according to the Septuagint. In the prophecy, Isaias has received the com- mand to bring about, by his preaching, tJie hardening of Israel and its final ruin. [58] BooKH] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE they do it not, it is because their carnal hearts are wholly devoted to death. As for the faithful, those men of goodwill, who thirst for light, to them the mysteries of God, that is to say the plan of religion, the secrets of the life divine in its rela- tions with that of creatures, will clearly and patiently be explained. "But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see and have not seen them ; and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them." This full initiation into the mysteries of heavenly doctrine is granted to the disciples, either because of the good dis- position of their hearts, or in view of the part reserved for them in the founding of the Church. What they learn, they shall be called upon to teach. The Master is pleased to intrust to them the talents which they shall have to render fruitful for His sake. For them to be enlightened is to contract the obligation of enlightening others. This obligation is the greatest honour that can be done to man. Under Jesus' rule, and with Him, they shall be the teachers of mankind. Then, replying to their second question, concerning the sense of the parable, Jesus manifests His benevolence and patience toward His own true proselytes. "The seed is the word of God," He says. Between the grain sown in the furrow and the truth of God implanted in souls there is, indeed, much similarity of growth. If nothing happens to check their native activity, both must produce life and its abundant fruits. The first and veri- table sower is the Son of God, the Word of the Father, Who casts Himself upon the world like good grain, first by His Incarnation, and then by His word. After Him, there are other sowers sent by Him; these are they who [59] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second spread on earth the teachings of His Gospel. "And they by the wayside are tliey that hear; then the devil cometh and taketh the word out of their heart lest believing they should be saved." These dissipated souls, exposed to every impression, to all the winds of heaven, and long since hardened also beneath the feet that trample on them, are wholly incapable of receiving the divine teachings with profit. The fecundating influence of grace and the work- ings of conscience have ceased to move them. And, there- fore, by failing to open the soil of the heart for the assim- ilation of the divine seed, they leave it exposed. Soon the world with its hurly-burly, its noisy distractions, its dan- gerous maxims, and the demon, who is king of this world, the hater of God's word, kill or remove these germs of life. Thus sealed to heaven and all open to earth, these wretched souls become laden with new responsibility and new guilt, without hope of resurrection or salvation. "Now they upon the rock ^ are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no roots; for they believe for a while and in time of temptation they fall away." These superficial minds are alas ! but too numerous. In them glowing imagination and a very intense impression- ism take the place of depth and solidity. They grasp the truth with eagerness, as they do any other novelty held out to them. They surprise us by the excess of their first fervour, but the fervour will not endure. Beneath their superficial refinement there is a fundamental hardness, self- love and pride, that cannot sustain true life. Nothing could be more ephemeral than the harvest that ripens in such a soil. It has not, nor can it have, any root. The first temptation will devour it like the burning sun; the first scandal will uproot it like an impetuous wind. It is * St. Luke thus characterises them. If the fields were merely rocky, the roots could still gain a hold between the pebbles. [60] BOOK n] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE only inexperience that will look for fruit from such a life. Imagination divorced from reason, sentimentality without conviction will never make a true Christian. "And that which fell among thorns are they who have heard, and, going their way, are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit." These apparently well-disposed hearts, too, are quite numerous ; but they are divided between God and the world, and, notwithstanding their rich and fertile soil, they will pro- duce nothing. The cares of life, the goads of concupis- cence, the unchecked desire for the deceitful riches of earth are so many cruel thorns that spring up in them, increas- ing and multiplying and forming an impenetrable thicket wherein the good seed will die imprisoned. The bushes, as they grow, hide it from the sun, and by multiplying their roots, they dispute with it the enriching power of the soil. What will then be left it as an element of life? Nothing. It will, therefore, perish miserably. Why has not the soul, that has beheld and even accepted the truth, the courage to follow it and by so doing insure its own salvation? This is the mystery of evil. Distracted, be- set on all sides, tormented by violent passions, it will see its earliest effort spend itself in miserable steriUty. "But that on the good ground are they who in a good and perfect heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience." The fecundity of these pure, noble souls is beautiful and consoling. Happily endowed by nature, exercised in a continual moral effort, freed from all earthly preoccupations, and made ready by grace, they delight and glorify the heavenly Sower. This is the entire story of the Kingdom of God in its beginnings, its abrupt endings, its growth. It takes root only in hearts that are naturally good, responsive, and sin- cere. All others it barely touches in passing by. It leaves [61] LIFE OF CHRIST [paht second them barren and dead, because it finds them unworthy of the gift of Hfe. But once having fallen upon good ground, the divine word labours therein, alone, so to speak, and fructifies by the sheer force of its own virtue. This is what Jesus gives His Apostles to understand in a short parable found in St. Mark,^^ but not mentioned by St. Matthew, it would seem, because those he gives already contain it in their general meaning. "When a man has sown his seed," says the Master, "whether he is asleep or awake, night or day, germination will go on without his knowing how, and the earth will put forth, first the blade, then the ear, and last of all the full corn in the ear." When the grain is ripe there is nothing more for him to do but to come with his sickle ; it is harvest- time. God's word, it is true, moves virtuous souls, though they know it not. They are frequently anxious because they do not perceive their advance in virtue. Theirs is like the impatience of the husbandman who would wish to see suddenly ripe upon the ear the grain he has just cast into the earth. We must learn to moderate our eagerness, to let God's grace pursue its gradual work, at times imper- ceptible, but ever certain. It will bring the fruit to maturity, if we do nothing to render the soil bad or the development of the germ impossible. In His mercy and paternal care God never wearies of labouring in the depths of souls who love Him, and of putting in them the power "both to will and to accomplish," as says St. Paul.^^ As, in the furrow, the grain which is at first warmed, then, in turn, moistened, softened, and developed, mysteriously takes root, and afterward springs up triumphant from the ground, being transformed, multiplied, and ripened with no further effort on the husbandman's part, so the religious life is born in the heart, is rooted there, and '" Cf. St. Mark iv, 26-29. " Philip, ii, 13. [ 62 ] BOOK II] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE then leaps forth to multiply and spread by the most aston- ishing works of charity, gradually opening into the full maturity of a sanctity admired of earth, and, in the end, re- warded of heaven. The true and faithful man has only to remain good — for this is an indispensable condition — and to let things take their course. He may sleep in peace ; a fine harvest is assured him. God, the great and mighty Worker, watches for him, and His benediction will be able to satisfy our greatest desires. Thanks to God's persevering, energetic, intimate action upon His faithful, the Church, surmounting all obstacles, must complete the conquest of the whole world and be- come God's Kingdom made visible on earth. Her devel- opment will present a twofold character of sudden grandeur and of victorious though latent universality, which must be well understood. It is a proof of the divin- ity of her Founder. That the idea of it might be con- ceived, Jesus expounded two other parables, one of which, concerning the grain of mustard-seed, sets forth the mira- cle of the interior development of the Church, and the other, regarding the leaven, the amazing power of her intimate influence on the mass of mankind. "To what shall we liken the Kingdom of God, or to what parable shall we compare it .'"' He asked. "It is as a grain of mustard-seed, Avhich when It Is sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that are in the earth. And when It Is sown it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof." The smallness of the grain of charlock or mustard-seed was proverbial among the Jews;^^ but this Invisible seed has an extraor- dinary vegetative force. In Palestine the mustard-plant " St. Luke xvai, 6. [63] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second sometimes attains the proportions of a little fig-tree.^ ^ Birds in flocks, in search of food, alight on it. Hang- ing from the sides of a rock, it may be, one of these hardy shrubs attracted, at the moment, the Saviour's attention. He took from it the lively antithesis which He wished to set forth, and, sacrificing the emblem of the cedar which Ezechiel had selected in the prophecy ^* to which this para- ble alludes. He looked for His analogue in something in- finitely small. This was essential in order to prove how nothing can become everything under God's inspiration. The scarcely perceptible grain of mustard-seed is no other than this very Man Who for thirty years lived on, hum- ble, ignored, misunderstood in the shop at Nazareth, Whose only helpers are twelve unknown, ignorant, despised men, and Who to-morrow is to die a most infamous death. But, within itself, this small seed has incomparable warmth and life. In vain will they endeavor to shut it up in a grave. It will shoot forth, and, breaking through the ground, will send out from its heart a tree that shall astonish the world by its luxuriant vegetation. This tree is the Church; among iis branches shall come for rest and nutrition the great souls that scorn the earth, and seek to live in the higher regions of religious knowledge, of holiness, and of the life divine. For nineteen centuries we may say that no great sentiment, no grand idea, no sublime devotion has been in the world without seeking a shelter beneath this mystic tree and without finding in its branches its sweetest joys and best inspirations. Parallel with this rapid and visible extension of the Kingdom of God, the hidden and deep-set transformation of mankind will take place. Again Jesus said: "Where- ^' Hieros. Peak, fol. 20, 2: R. Simeon ben Colaphta says: "Caulis sinapis erat mihi in agro meo, in quam ego scandere solitus eram ut scandere solent in ficum " ^* Ezech. xvii, 22. [64] BOOK II] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE unto shall I esteem the Kingdom of God to be like? It is like to leaven which a woman took and hid in three meas- ures of meal,^^ till the whole was leavened." It is an essential property of leaven to penetrate the entire mass in which it is placed. It causes a general fermentation and insures for the bread the porousness and the lightness that constitute its excellence. Jesus, or, if one prefers, the Christian teacliing, is the leaven of the moral life here below. The woman who puts this leaven in the three measures of meal is the Church which, for nineteen hundred years, developes the dominion of the Saviour and dissem- inates His doctrines in the three parts of the ancient world, or among the three great races of humanity, until all is fermented, raised, and transformed. The work is not yet near its end. The secret influence still goes on. Unbelief declares, in vain, that Christ is vanishing from the world. He goes on before it and every day gains new ground. Every hour there is some soul generous enough to carry to a greater distance the sacred leaven of the Gospel into some corner of the globe, and mankind is unconsciously overrun. Even those who think to do naught in behalf of Christianity, they, too, for various reasons stir up the inert mass of paganism and of barbarism ; and, though they seek only to broaden the confines of civilisation, it is the dominion of Jesus Christ that they assist in developing. It is unfortunate that this triumph of the Church, assured in future time, does not exclude all base alloy from the Christian society in the present. There will be always some good and some wicked. The glorious coming of Jesus Christ will be realised despite this interior obstacle permitted by God. Therefore we may not retire to our repose in dangerous optimism and tell ourselves that since *^ Three measures of flour was the ordinary quantity kneaded at a time by the Jews. {Gen. xviii, 6.) [65] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second we are enrolled in the Kingdom of God here below, we are, therefore, good and shall be of the Kingdom on high. One may be in the Church and be a sinner ; we may wear the livery of a Christian and be reprobate; the patience of God in this life does not prevent His justice in the life to come ; on the contrary, it the more forcibly evokes it. Another parable tells us this. "The Kingdom of Heaven," Jesus says again, "is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle^® among the wheat, and Avent his way. And when the blade was sprung up and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house, coming, said to him : Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence, then, hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And then the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? And he said: No, lest perhaps, gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers : Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn." This figurative narration contained something particu- larly lively, both as a dialogue and as a portrayal of rustic customs. The disciples became very eager to learn its meaning. We little understand, in our day, in our civilised countries, the craven criminality of the wretch who scatters bad grain in his neighbour's furrow; but *° Some think that the word (i(iviov signifies in general any plant injurious to the harvest. Others consider it a question, here, of false oats, the infelix lolium of Virgil {Ed., v, 37). But most interpreters claim that it treats here of a plant quite common in Palestine, whose kernel is somewhat similar to that of wheat. Its growth is much the same as that of real grain. It is only when the growth is completed that the injurious herb is distinguished by its fruit. BOOK II] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE Roman law provided for it, and travellers tell us that it is still done in some countries in the Orient. The East- Indian, in particular, threatens to sow in his enemy's culti- vated lands the perum-pirandi which would render a har- vest impossible for several years. He watches for a favourable opportunity, and so succeeds in his criminal work as to throw a whole family into despair and most awful want.^'^ But who is the wretch that can seek to introduce evil into the Kingdom of God? What means this separation and these varying destinies of the cockle and of the wheat in the time of the harvest.? The disci- ples were impatient in their desire to know. The soul that is being initiated into divine truth feels itself greedy of hght, and all its desires are for a full revelation. Here, in particular, interest was the more pressing, as the grave question of the last end of man and of the diverse forms of future hf e seemed to have been raised. As soon as He had dismissed the multitude and had re- entered the house, Jesus was again assailed with questions by His disciples. They would know the full meaning of the parable which they had heard. With the touch- ing kindness of a master or of a father teaching his chil- dren, He said: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man and the field is the world; and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; and the cockle are the chil- dren of the wicked one; and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil." The disastrous activity of evil is therefore met at every step in life together with that of good. Jesus sows in the universe — which is indeed His field since He created it — the race of the just. He does His work painfully in the full light of the sun, with suffering and with love. Satan accomplishes his hke a traitor in the dark at one stroke — for evil is done more swiftly than " Roberts, Oriental Illustrations, p. 541. [67] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second good — and with hate. The errors, the moral unworthi- ness, the hypocrisy that he hidden in the bosom of the Church, remain for a time unperceived, until at last events show forth the true children of God and His enemies, the good and the bad. One may discern them even in this life, and the outraged zeal of the toilers of the Gospel would will- ingly ask prompt justice. But the Master of the world wills it not. He knows how to be patient, because He is eternal, and, in our own behalf. He determines to employ forbearance. How many sinners would never have become good, if the hand of God had suddenly stricken them in their malice ! And even when they are not converted, is it not evident that they serve to exercise the virtue of the just and to glorify it.? As He awaits in patience the day of the harvest, God manifests His goodness. His wisdom, and His eternity. "But the harvest is the end of the world," says Jesus, "and the reapers are the Angels. Even as cockle, therefore, is gathered up and burnt with fire, so shall it be at the end of the world; the Son of Man shall send His Angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all scandals and them that work iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the just shine as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It is worth while, for awfully decisive for every one shall be that moment when the Angels shall separate, in the immense harvest of mankind laid low beneath the scythe of death, the elect and the damned. These portrayals of eternal pain, as well as of eternal reward, appear here neither for the first time nor for the last. The very insistence with which they are reproduced proves that they are not merely a sport of the imagina- tion. There shall be as great despair in falHng among these horrible woes, pictured by eternal fire, as there shall [68] BOOK 11] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE be holy joy in entering into that glory of which the bright- ness of the sun is but an imperfect image. Hell for some, heaven for others; the groanings of exile for the former, the joys of fatherland for the latter. It is a question of supreme importance. Hence, Jesus, by two more parables, would have us know that we must endeavour, at any price, to become true citi- zens of the heavenly Kingdom. Cost what it may, we must get ourselves incorporated therein, and by keeping our place honourably in time, we shall deserve to dwell there for eternity. "The Kingdom of Heaven," He says, "is like unto a treasure hidden in a field ; which a man, having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field." It is not the procedure by which the proprietor of the field is deprived of his right to the treasure, that is here recommended, but only the ardour displayed by him who, having found the treasure, endeav- ours to gain possession of it. Likewise the soul, having seen its religious ideal in the Gospel, should hasten to sacrifice both its repose and its pleasures, its position and its fortune, to follow after it and to attain it. What matters all the rest if the treasure is everything for the soul? The Jewish people had this incomparable treasure; they had it in their lands ; but they suspected it not. The Gentiles more happily came upon it one day suddenly, unexpectedly, beneath the feet of their triumphant hordes. At a glance they knew its inappreciable value, and, cast- ing off their false wisdom, their false pleasures, their false gods, they bought this divine deposit from the obstinately blinded Jews ; they became the proprietors and have for- ever supplanted the faithless synagogue which is rejected of God. "Again," says Jesus, "the Kingdom of Heaven is like [69] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second to a merchant seeking fine pearls ; who, when he had found one pearl of gi*eat price, went his way and sold all that he had, and bought it." Such, also, should be the prudence of the philosopher, of the man of meditation, who spends all the strength of his mind in the search for truth. When, by the study of the contents of Christianity he has obtained a view of its sublime harmony, when the evidence of the Gospel argument has shone like a diamond to his experi- enced eye, he has only to close his books, to put an end to his search, to lay aside all pride, and to enjoy the incom- parable treasure that grace has put beneath his hand. He has found light for his understanding, a rule for his will, consolation for his heart. To what do all those vanities now amount, which up to this moment had misled his life.'' Justin quits his philosopher's cloak; Augustine leaves his rhetorician's chair. They have found the precious stone; they have sold all to buy it, and their consolation is in the knowledge that on entering into eternity, while noth- ing else shall be of any value, the pearl they carry in their hands shall suffice to purchase for them a life of bliss. It is with His disciples' minds filled with this thought of eternity that Jesus desires to leave them. In a final parable which He draws from an incident in the life of fishermen, of which they perhaps were witnesses — nothing was better suited to the character of His hearers, fisher- men by profession and future fishers of men, than such language — He speaks once more of the varying destinies that await the good and the bad after death. "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kinds of fishes ; which, when it was filled, they drew out, and, sitting by the shore, they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth." This will be the final result of the preaching of the [70] BOOK II] THE SHORES OF THE LAKE Gospel. The net, or seine, much longer than it is wide, furnished with floats at the top and weights at the bottom, which the fishermen cast into the sea, and drag in the depths of the waters by ropes attached to the extremities, is the Gospel which the Apostles, God's valiant workers, patiently draw through all the world. It reaches every- where, even to the regions of the humble classes. In its meshes it encloses every kind of fish, men of every race, of every tongue, of every condition, good and bad. To those who are taken the Church gives the mark, the name, the law of the Christian, whatever their age, though she is not always able to discover their interior dispositions. They live all together, under the law of the Gospel, some indifferent, some even perverse. In the meantime the Angels of God insensibly draw the net to land; they lift the fine catch forth from the overflowing sea of the world, out of its deep waters, where evil is easily confused with good, and cast it surprised and shuddering upon the banks of eternity. There the great selection takes place. That which is good they gather in with care, while they reject with scorn what is worthless. These ex- perienced servants make no mistakes. No merely apparent virtue, neither prodigies nor clever hypocrisy, can save the wicked. The separation will be fatal and definitive. Here once more the furnace of fire awaits the guilty, and they shall groan therein forever. "Have ye understood all these things?" said the Mas- ter. The disciples responded: "Yes." And it would have been difficult to present to them in more tangible form these great laws of the supernatural order that govern the destiny of the world. The Master, content with their reply, was overjoyed at the result obtained, and advised the Apostles to be careful to vary their teaching, later on, so that it might be within the grasp of their hearers. [71] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second He said : "Therefore every scribe, instructed in the King- dom of Heaven, is hke to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old." Thus the true messenger of the Good-Tidings, in order to vary his teaching with profit, shall have at his disposal the complete science of the Old and the New Testament. He can faithfully expound the commandments of the Law and those of the Gospel, to demonstrate all the Messianic prophecies and their providential fulfilment. Such is the variety of substance in the hands of the true teacher. To this will be added, according to circumstances, men, and times, variety of form. One epoch differs from another in its tastes, in its intellectual culture, in its tendencies. Of all kinds of Gospel-preaching, those only are to be con- demned that do no good. It is for the man of God to judge if he must introduce a new method of exposition into a new society, as Lacordaire so successfully essayed among the men of his time and nation, or if it be better to revive the past with its more simple homiletic teaching and its more practical and more pious considerations. The truth of the Gospel lends itself to each kind. It is enough that the Apostle should have it sufficiently matured in his heart, in advance, in order to be able to present it, in turn, with a wealth of figures, with logical energy, with the simplicity of ordinary colloquial speech. In this way he will prove his piety, as well as his knowledge and his close union with God, even more than his talent. Jesus, having completed these parables which constituted the whole body of His doctrine concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, left Capharnaum and the shores of the lake and resumed His apostohc journeyings. [72] CHAPTER V THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE A New Apostolic Journey into Galilee — The Women Who Follow Jesus — Their Devotion — The Mas- ter Determines to Introduce the Twelve to THE Works of the Apostolate — The Wise Instruc- tions He Gives Them — To Do Good to the Man of God Will Be the Same as to Do It to God Himself — The Apostles Depart, Two by Two, and Work Wonders. (St. Luke viii, 1-3, and ix, 1-6; St. Mat- thew X, 1-15, 40-42; St. Mark vi, 7-13.) Here begins another series of journeys in Galilee, the details of which are completely unknown to us. Jesus went from town to town, from borough to borough, the Evangelists ^ say, instructing the people in the syna- gogues, preaching the coming of the Messianic Kingdom, and healing the sick that were brought to Him. It was a picturesque and beautiful sight : the travelling Church like a blessed caravan, bearing here and there, together with the Good-Tidings, the rich treasures of heaven. A few of the Apostles went on before as heralds to announce the coming of the Great Prophet. Some pious women, on foot or mounted on quiet mules, followed the glorious expedition and aided it as much by their resources ' St. Matt, ix, 35; St. Mark vi, 6; St. Luke viii, 1. [73] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second as by their thoughtful sohcitude. Their presence could not constitute a danger to the Apostolic circle. When one has come to know a woman's soul in its utmost depths, and has had to manifest pity for her ; when one has raised her from her disgrace, restored her to virtue, and, above all, introduced her to the higher life of grace, there is nothing to apprehend from her constant presence. She deems herself inferior to her benefactor, and by that very fact, like a bee disarmed, she has lost her disastrous goad ; vanity no longer whispers to her the desire of pleasure, and gratitude removes all thought of victory or of conquest. Then, into the soul comes the sweet, calm sentiment of friendship which unfailingly excludes passion with its vio- lence and its danger. She loves faithfully, devotedly, and with incomparable tenderness. No longer able to do man harm, she aids him with a patience that nothing wearies and with a generosity that knows no bounds. All the women who followed Jesus had been healed by Him of some moral or physical ill. The first one named is Mary Magdalen. We know the powerful motives of her gratitude; the unfortunate woman had been delivered from seven demons, that is, delivered from the yoke of the passions that stained her youth and dishonoured her life. After her came Joanna, the wife of Chusa a steward of King Herod, it may be, that officer of the court who, having obtained from Jesus the cure of his son, had become a believer together with all his house ; " Susanna, of whom the Gospel history gives no information, and several others, who, later on, grouped at the foot of the cross, or hurrying to the door of the sepulchre, will prove, to the shame of the Apostles, that a woman's heart, in its affections, knows not the inconstancy that sometimes dis- honours the heart of man. 2 St. John iv, 53. [74] BOOK II] MISSION OF THE TWELVE These holy friends, according to the Httle information which we have concerning them, belonged for the most part to the wealthier class of Jewish society, yet they were not without an admixture of democracy ; for although Joanna had lived in Herod's court, Salome, the mother of James and John, was married to a fisherman who had hired assis- tants, and Mary of Cleophas was in all probability the wife of a simple artisan. Mary Magdalen was of an hon- ourable family of Bethany, of which we shall learn some- thing later on.^ All together assisted Jesus and His Apostles in their needs whenever honourable hospitality failed to come to their aid in the material difficulties of life. It was part of the divine plan that the Messiah should live here below on the charity of the people. The Apos- tolic community had a treasury in which were placed the alms given them, and from which they drew in order to supply the needs of the poor. But the most certain re- source was ever the hearts of these deserving women who had devoted themselves to the work of fulfilling for the Master and His disciples the duties of mothers and sisters. The details of this new Apostolic journey into Galilee are wanting; but we know that Jesus must have been im- pressed with the vast proportions of the religious move- ment provoked by the Good-Tidings. He could not be everywhere at the same time to do and to preach, and, moreover, the hour was at hand when He must transfer to Judea and to Jerusalem itself His work in the preaching 'It is surprising not to find Mary, the Mother of Jesus, among these names. It may be, however, that this is an oversight, occasioned we know not how, in the Synoptic tradition ; an oversight again met with in the enumer- ation of the women present on Calvary, but for which St. John afterward more than makes amends. It may be, again, that, a retired and silent life being better suited to Mary's contemplative soul, this saintly Mother pre- ferred through humility to refrain from accompanying her Son in His tri- umphs, though later on she most jealously followed Him even in His deepest humiliations. [75] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second of the Gospel. He determined to associate His disciples more directly in His own labours. It was not in vain that they had received the title of Apostle. How could they prepare themselves for their future mission more profit- ably than under the Master's eye? Jesus therefore solemnly called them together and, ex- plaining the conditions in which they are to labour, said to them : "Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the cities of the Samaritans enter ye not ; but go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." ^ The Jews are to be the sole object of their first Apostolate. For the pres- ent, the evangelisation of the pagans would be beyond their strength. They must await the coming of the Holy Ghost and His creative work at Pentecost before they undertake so great a conquest. Even the Samaritans, the middle term between Israel and the Gentiles, oifered insur- mountable obstacles to inexperienced zeal. Great, indeed, will be the gain if the Apostles succeed in effecting in some of their compatriots the religious transformation that has revolutionised their own lives. This result does not seem impossible, for, while between paganism and the new religion there is an abyss, between this latter and Judaism there is a visible connection, and the transition would be most natural. Besides, in addition to this presumed insufficiency of the Apostles, there is another motive that inspires Jesus' recommendation. For Judaism alone He has destined the first-fruits of the Gospel. For Judaism first of all the light rises in the heavens. Only after the Jews may the Gentiles profit by it. The sons of the patriarchs, the *This recommendation is omitted in St. Mark vi, 8, as well as in St. Luke ix, 3. In the latter the omission is accidental and by no means m- spired by miiversalist tendencies. This restriction being only provisional, the two Evangelists attach no importance to it, and St. Matthew, who notes it, will tell later on (xxviii, 19) in what terms Jesus withdrew it. [76] BooKu] MISSION OF THE TWELVE children of the prophets cannot be deprived of their birth- right. Before all others, theirs is the privilege of being invited to receive the religious heritage of their fathers, to enjoy the fulfilment of the ancient promises made to Israel. The theme of the Apostles' preaching is as follows : "And going, preach, saying, The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They have only to make an announcement, to spread the tidings, to bear witness, to attract the atten- tion and dispel the indifference of all. To teach the word of truth magisterially, would as yet be impossible to them ; for one can give only what he has, and they, scarcely acquainted with the rudiments of Christian life, can neither define its conditions nor make known its elements. Their work is to announce: "The Messiah is come." To gain credit for their assertion, they will perform miracles. "Heal the sick," adds Jesus . . . "cleanse the lepers, cast out devils." By this sign, the miracle, the guarantee of truth given by God to human words, men shall see that they are not liars. By their disinterestedness they shall be known as men serving no human intention, but follow- ing a higher inspiration. "Freely have you received, freely give." By accepting money they would degrade the Apostolic ministry. Providence will care for the heralds of the Good-Tidings. God takes upon Himself the keeping of His servants. "Do not possess gold," the Master continues, "nor silver, nor money in your purses ; nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff ; ^ for the workman is worthy of his hire." In ^ Were we to repeat the word two before shoes and staff, we should do away with the apparent divergency between St. INIark and St. INIatthew. In the latter Gospel the Saviour means: "Take nothing more than what you already have, no other shoes, no other staff"; in the former: "What you now have with you will suffice, the shoes on your feet, the staff in your hand," etc. The text of St. Luke (ix, 13) is more difficult. This is prob- ably another of those unimportant inaccuracies which we must admit in [77] LIFE OF CHRIST [p.-^t second return for the truth he brings, the Apostle will receive the material help necessary that he may live. "And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, in- quire who in it is worthy." The Apostle honours him with whom he lodges. "Wheresoever you shall enter into a house, there abide till you depart from that place." Any change would denote a desire of comfort and a certain inconstancy of character unworthy in a man of God, and besides would wound the feelings of the host, whom he would seem to disdain. The true labourer of the Gospel is content with what he has at hand, seeking nothing better, believing that God in His mercy had prepared this for him. He would hesitate to substitute for the will of his Heavenly Father his own pleasant personal preferences. "And when you come into the house, salute it, sajang. Peace be to tliis house ; and if that house be worthy, your peace shall come upon it." If the family respond to the blessing pronounced upon it, if by its virtues it merit re- ceiving the man of God, the Apostle's wish is accomplished, and heaven's benediction is fulfilled. "But if it be not worthy, your peace shall return to you." The Apostles shall keep the divine favours for some more hospitable and better-disposed people. "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, going forth out of that house or city shake off the dust from your feet ^ for a testi- the sacred text, unless we read pd$Sovt, as in St. Matthew, and not 'pd$$ov, as in St. Mark; but the absolute negative /iTjSeV renders this reading in- admissible. However, although the terms differ, the idea is the same in all three Gospels: "No preparation for the journey; go as you are with God's protection." ' The Jews were accustomed to shake the dust from their shoes when they had walked on pagan ground. The places inhabited by Gentiles were as vile as the Gentiles themselves. In Jewish casuistry there are ridiculously severe prescriptions regarding this. See Lightfoot. Hor. Hebr., in St. Matt. X, 14. Jesus means here that the faithless Israelite must be for the Apostle like a veritable pagan, and that his crime is abominable in God's sight. St. Paul obeyed these precepts. (Acts xiii, 15 ; xviii, 6.) [78] BOOK II] MISSION OF THE TWELVE mony against them. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city." Nothing reaches the Master's heart more sensibly than the welcome given to His disciples. If closing against them the door of the house or the gates of the city is a crime, giving them a cordial welcome will be a meritorious act. "He that receiv- eth you," again says Jesus, "receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me. He that receiv- eth a prophet in the name of the prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet." To nourish him, to shelter him, to clothe him is to aid him in the fulfilment of his mission, to have a share in his labours and, consequently, in his merits. "And he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man." How often this thought has opened the heart and the treas- ury of the rich to the servants of God, seeking assistance for their projects! The Master's word has pleaded for them and, thanks to the generous souls who have heard it, their goodwill, their faith, their devotion have been enabled to realise the most sublime dreams of charity and of religion. And, finally, with a deep feeling of tenderness for these humble disciples who go joyously to inaugurate their Apostolate, but whose coming trials He clearly perceives. He exclaims : "And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." For a first, tentative mission, which was to be brief and free from danger, these instructions were sufficient. Moreover, the attitude of the Galilean towns whither the Apostles were going was, for the most part, encouraging. Any messenger who announced the Messiah would be wel- [79] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second corned there. Later on, when the seventy disciples them- selves are sent upon their mission, we shall study the Mas- ter's words of advice for times of persecution. Then they shall come from His lips most naturally, since the storm will surround the little flock on all sides. It will seem only reasonable that the Shepherd, after having told of the woes that await Himself, should speak of the trials re- served for His representatives.^ The Apostles, therefore, departed two by two, as Jesus had recommended.^ They did this as a means of mutual help and of giving authoritative testimony to the truth; for the law recognised as true the depositions of two wit- nesses who agreed. When the moon of Nisan appeared in the sky, two men went and presented themselves before the Sanhedrim to attest that they had seen it, and, on their affirmation, the beginning of the new year was proclaimed. It was right that the Apostles also should be sent In twos, as witnesses who were to announce to a city the rising of the sun of justice and the commencement of the Gospel era. The Apostles spread rapidly In all directions, preach- ing repentance and preparing hearts for the approach of the Kingdom of God. They were readily welcomed, and nothing failed thern.^ They exorcised demons and healed many that were sick. The better to arouse the faith of the infirm, they had recourse, according to St. Mark, to an outward sign, the anointing with oil. Doubtless, the Master had so commanded. Besides, He Himself did not ' St. Matthew has put all this together because, passing over the later sending of the seventy disciples, he found trouble in otherwise distributing those important instructions which he did not wish to sacrifice. Again, it is well known that he took pleasiu-e frequently in summing up in one dis- course such teachings as were analogous, although given at different times. St. Luke, in this discourse at least, puts each in its own place. * St. Mark vi, 7, is alone in observing that they were to go two by two; but the lists of Apostles all seem to be made in \'iew of this arrangement. * We learn this from a word that Jesus uttered during the Last Supper. (St. Luke xxii, 35.) [80] BOOK II] MISSION OF THE TWELVE hesitate at times to move the senses that He might reach the soul, and to employ a material element that He might awaken faith in those whom He desired to heal. When He made use of His own spittle to open the eyes of a blind man or to loose the tongue of one deaf and dumb, it was solely to supply, by this physical contact, the moral influ- ence which His look or His word could not produce. Like- wise the Apostles, by applying oil to the bodies of the sick, sought to arouse religious dispositions in their souls. And thus they prepared the miraculous cure signified by the anointing. Their mission was not fruitless. The religious move- ment was seen to grow more and more in Galilee. From this agitation there came forth new recruits to the nas- cent Church. Jesus received them with joy and patiently undertook their religious formation. But the march of events was not to leave Him for long the leisure to pursue this work of edification. The Apostolic group itself will claim His chief efforts, for it must be disciplined in all haste, by drill, both in retreat and in resistance, before it shall be led to the decisive combat in the capital of Judea. [81] Section III Jesus Disciplines His Church CHAPTER I HEROD ORDERS JOHN THE BAPTIST TO BE PUT TO DEATH Popular Opinion Regarding Jesus — Herod's Terror — How Two Women, Herodias, the Adulteress, and Salome, the Dancer, Induced Him to Sentence the Precursor to Death — The Baptist's Head on a Charger — Herod Would See Jesus — Danger of Sedition — The Withdrawal to Philip's Territory. (St. Mark vi, 14-16 and 21-29; St. Matthew xiv, 1 and 6-12 ; St. Luke ix, 7-9.) After the mission of the Apostles the name of Jesus was more than ever upon the lips of all. It reached even the ears of Herod, who at once became anxious.^ This * For at least a year Jesus had been agitating the multitudes in Galilee and had been accorapUshing prodigious works at the gates of Tiberias ; how is it to be explained, then, that Herod had not yet paid any attention to Him ? Probably the Saviour had commenced His public life at the very time when the tetrarch was detained either at Rome to defend his interests in the presence of the Emperor, or on the Arabian frontier to check the hostilities of Aretas. Besides, we are aware that it was not characteristic of this sceptical and voluptuous prince to bother himself with the religious questions that might be disturbing his subjects, unless public order was thereby troubled. The Herods much preferred to let the sects and the Rabbis engage in discussion as long as they did not refuse to pay taxes and were not disobedient to the government. Hence, when John the Baptist was thrown into prison, it was because he directly accused the person of the tetrarch. [82] BOOK II] JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DEATH prince, always hesitating between the hatred that Herodias stirred up in him against John the Baptist and the fear of the people which protected the venerable prisoner, had finally committed a great crime. The ordinary punishment of criminals is to be pur- sued pitilessly by the memory of their victims, and to live as if they already felt the avenging arm which even in this life begins to seize upon them. Everything conspires to excite in them continual terror. Conscience instinc- tively echoes the most extravagant suppositions of the multitude. Jesus' reputation spread from day to day, and those who did not know His history and who, per- haps, had never seen Him, said : "John the Baptist is risen again from the dead; and therefore mighty works show forth themselves in him." Others chose to believe that it was EHas who had come back to earth, or a prophet of olden times. Herod was struck above all by the words of the former, and his terror inclined him to share their opinion. "It is John," he cried out, "John, whom I be- headed ; he is risen again from the dead." And he sought an opportunity to see the Thaumaturgus of whom every- body was talking. It may be that in his heart he had a vague desire to prove either that the dead do not come back, or that, if John has come back, his crime is in part repaired. The wretched man had ordered the Baptist to be put to death in peculiarly odious circumstances. The Evan- gelists have given us a dramatic account of it. It was the very day on which the prince was celebrat- ing the anniversary either of his birth or of his accession to power.2 The nobles of his court, the generals of his ' The text yevetrlois ytvofievois has been variously interpreted. For some, it signifies the anniversary of the birth, which the ancients celebrated with solemnity. (Gen. xl. 20 ; II Mach. vi, 7.) In this sense Josephus (Antiq., lib. xii, 4, 7) uses it when he speaks of the great personages of Syria, [83] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second army, and the leading personages of the country had been invited to his table. At the conclusion of the banquet there were mimic scenes, lascivious dances, intended to excite the evil passions of the banqueters. The Rome of Cicero had long practised these unhealthy exhibitions.^ The Rome of the Caesars spread them over the world together with all the rest of their immorality. Herod the Elder had estab- lished a theatre in his palace and a circus in Jerusalem. It is not surprising that his son, a vassal yet more servile than the father, had set himself the task of imitating the dissolute morals of his masters. To enliven the brilliancy of the feast, the daughter of Herodias,* the young Salome, forgetful of what she owed to the memory of her own father, presented herself upon the scene. Cleverly reared in the school of crime and of seduction, she achieved a great success. The prince, already heated by the fumes of wine, sought to respond to the applause of the guests and to testify to his own satisfaction by offering to grant the young girl whatever she might desire. Calling her to his side, he said to her: "Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, though it be the half of my kingdom." This was offering much for Httle. From the imprudence of these words we may see that the tetrarch's head was who celebrated the birthday of the King's sons. For others, following / Kings xiii, 11, and Ps. ii, 7, it means the anniversary of the accession to the throne. (Comp. Dion Cass., xlvii, 18.; In this case, the murder of the Baptist would here be in its proper place chronologically, for we are approaching the Paschal time, and, Herod the Great having died about seven days before the Passover, Antipas would celebrate his accession at about this very time. In fact, it is not unusual for the word yeyeaia to signify the day on which a prince ascended the throne. (See Herodotus, iv, 26, and Suicer, Thesaurus, 1, p. 746.) ^ Cicero, Pro Murena, c. 6: "Tempestivi convivii, amoeni tori, midtarum divitiarum comes est extrema saltatio." (See Horace, Od., iii, 5, 21.) * Salome was the child of Herodias, the daughter of Herod the Great and Berenice, by her first husband, whom she had shamefully abandoned. This was Herod-Philip, son of Mariamne. Por the strange history of this family of Herod, see M. de Saulcy's book. Hist. d'Herode (Paris, 1867). [84] BOOK II] JOHN THE BAPTISTS DEATH affected. It may be that he thought to keep his promise with some rich present on the occasion of the approaching wedding of Salome and PhiHp, Tetrarch of Ituraea. Un- consciously, the wretched man had promised a crime. The young girl went out for a moment to consult with her mother about the request she should make. So gen- erous a promise falling from the royal lips was embarrass- ing. Herodias quickly decided the question and herself dictated the response. The guilty mother, fearing only that she might be repudiated when, in Herod's soul, the voice of the Baptist had become stronger than passion, could have but one desire, that of suppressing every dan- ger by the suppression of this advocate of public morality. She had long contended with the obstinate refusal of the tetrarch her seducer. The latter, as we have said else- where, hesitated at this final crime, as much through ven- eration of the imprisoned prophet as through fear of a popular uprising. At last he was to be overcome. Woman, astute once she has become criminal, knows how to await the favourable moment to destroy by one stroke of daring the last sentiments of justice and honour that still remain in the heart of her captive. The adulterous princess, therefore, worded the reply to be given to the tetrarch. Salome returned in triumph to the banquet-hall and, with a smile upon her lips, she asked of the tetrarch neither a necklace of pearls nor a crown of gold, but the head of John the Baptist, all bloody, in one of the banquet-dishes. It was a frightful blow and well calculated to recall to his senses the half -intoxicated man who had provoked and who now received it. Herod at once became sad and troubled. But, alas ! his word had been pledged with an oath. At the same time, the courtiers — women like Herodias always have such at their service — seized the opportunity to overcome the final hesi- [85] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second tatlon of the royal conscience. They pleaded, no doubt, that there was greater danger in letting John live in his prison than in putting him to death. The populace were growing troublesome on the subject of the captive. John was the ally of Aretas, inasmuch as he pleaded the cause of his repudiated daughter. Aretas had declared war, and a word from Jolin the Baptist might provoke a most disastrous revolution. Reasons never fail policy when it wishes to abet a crime. Overcome by these argu- ments and not daring to prove false to his sworn word, Herod made a sign to the guard who was near by, and the latter departed to strike down the victim. The victim was not far away.^ In fact, the executioner soon returned, bringing to Salome the ghastly gift so much desired, and the girl went off in triumph to present it to her mother. Human cruelty is capable of inconceivable excesses. Marius had held in his hands the head of Mark Antony, the orator, and, in the midst of a banquet, had most ironically apostrophised it.^ Fulvia had taken that of Cicero upon her knees, to pierce his tongue with needles. We know not what the incestuous Herodias might have said or done before the bloody dish in which she beheld the face of her pitiless adversary. As for Herod, he did not soon forget that mouth eloquent even to the point of death, and the memory of his victim pursued him hence- forward hke an unrelenting torment. Thus is explained 'The expressions employed by both Evangelists prove this sufficiently. The young girl asks that the head be brought " forthwith " (4 ^mrvs) {St. Mark vi, 27), or, " here" («Se) {St. Matt, xiv, 8), that is, on the instant, and the soldier brought it in one of the dishes used at the banquet (eVi nlyaKi) . We cannot suppose, therefore, that Herod was in Tiberias and John in the fortress of Machaerus. It would have taken more than two days for the executioner to make the journey. It is probable that at that time the tetrarch was holding his court at Machserus, whence he could with ease direct the war against the King of Arabia. ° Valerius Maximus, ix, 2. [86] BOOK II] JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DEATH the terrified cry which the Evangehsts put upon his lips: "Tliis is John the Baptist." This news reached the Saviour while multitudes sur- rounded Him on the shores of the lake. The popular emo- tion was great when the Baptist's disciples, who had just fulfilled their last duty to their master, were heard relat- ing his tragic end. A general revolt was possible. If Herod attempted to have Jesus brought before him, such a revolt was almost certain. At any price, this must be avoided. [87] CHAPTER II JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD AND WALKS UPON THE WATER His Motives for Escaping from the Enthusiastic Multitudes — Journey to the Desert of Bethsaida — The Multitudes Preceded Jesus — How Shall Five Thousand Men Be Nourished with Five Loaves OF Bread and Two Small Fishes? — Creative Power OF THE Divine Benediction — The Passover in the Desert — The People Show Their Political Inten- tions— Jesus Has the Apostles Embark in Order to Withdraw Them from the Influence of the Mul- titude— He Comes to Them Walking on the Water — Peter Is Associated with Him in the Miracle — They Approach Genesareth. (St. Luke ix, 10-17; St. Mark vi, 30-56 ; St. Matthew xiv, 13-36 ; St. John vi, 1-21.1) In the meantime the Apostles had returned from their mission. The Master had, no doubt, fixed the time it * For the first time the Syrioptics and St. John give the same account. The latter brings Jesus hiuriedly from Jerusalem, where He was assisting at some feast, to the shores of I^ke Tiberias that we may \\itness the crisis of behef in Galilee, as we have heretofore seen it in Judea. It is by refusing to be the jwlitical Messiah dreamed of by the Jews, that Jesus alienated this people. The Synoptics agree with St. John on this imp rSvcp, v. 12), where there were only hamlets (Kd/xas) and fields (/fol aypohs), and where it was impossible to find food. Of an important town like Julias-Bethsaida, there can be no question. We must then begin by not translating the ordinary text as it is written, or interpolating and transforming, as some early copyists have done: els roirov eprtfiov irJAewj KaKovfj-ff-ns, " toward a desert place near the town called Bethsaida." Is it not better to accept the reading of Sinaiticus and suppress all mention of Bethsaida ? To say that St. Luke was imperfectly informed since he seemed to be unaware that the journey was made in a ship, which caused him to say nothing of the return, and of Jesus walking on the waters, seems even less reasonable than to change the text. In any ease, when we suppress the word " Bethsaida," we may locate the desert spot where the crowd was miraculously fed, where we mil, on the shore of the lake, which would not be that of Genesareth because it is in crossing the lake (SiairepdixavTes), that we enter into the environs of Capharuaum. Although the country was not open to Jesus, as we have seen after the healing of the demoniacs of Gergesa, the coast exactly opposite to Genesareth and to those places which belonged to the district of Julias-Bethsaida has been suggested. To this hypothesis there is a serious objection. It is that in no way can these parts be likened to a desert; and the plain which extends around the ruins of Et-Tell. El-]Mes'adieh, or El-Aradj, the three sites on which Bethsaida is placed, will appear the exact opposite of a desert to those who, like our- selves, have visited it. No doubt the desert, as spoken of in the Bible, does not always mean a place devoid of vegetation, since flocks and herds were made to graze on it, but the vegetation found there is poor and wild and uncultivable by the hand of man. But there are few lands more fertile, better watered, and more thickly inhabited than the present Buttaiah. We must, in order to find thereabouts wild and solitary places, either ascend to the north-east of Et-Tell (and then we are no longer on the shore of the lake), or descend to Ouadi Semak, where, in fact, are some almost barren elevations; but these heights would be too far off to have the name of the desert of Bethsaida. It would be more natural, perhaps, to seek the solitary spot, mentioned [90] BOOK II] JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD Jesus had time to remain awhile alone with His Apostles,* and that the multitudes only arrived later. They were more numerous than ever, and the group of friends or sight-seers who had come from the western shore had grown by the Evangelists, near the only Bethsaida they seem to have known, in the truly wild and rocky mountains to the north-east of Tell-Hima. Nothing can be more desolate than this line of hills entirely covered with black stones. Why, in truth, should Jesus, on leaving Genesareth, go far in search of a solitary place, when He could find one fifteen or twenty kilometres away and almost on the shore of the lake ? Here we can under- stand how the multitude could follow Him on foot, although He Him- self was in the boat, and how they increased in mmabers in passing through the little villages along the shore. One difficulty that has been suggested by the order given to the disciples to go to Bethsaida to await Him, is really imaginary. On the contrary, nothing is more natural than that the Master should have given this order, if we keep in view His real purpose. He wished the Apostles to pretend to depart without Him, to get into the open lake, to await Him near Bethsaida, that is, at a little distance from where they then stood. This observation seems to us so reasonable, that if one should wish to look for the exact scene of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes on the eastern side of the lake, it would be logically necessary to apply to Julias what is said in St. Mark vi, 45> of Bethsaida. The country of Peter and Andrew would have been too far for a rendezvous. When one has a distance of forty kilometres to traverse, and wishes merely to simulate a separation for the time being, he does not put off to the thirty-fifth the moment of reunion. Besides, if one leaves Abou-Zeineh or Ouadi Semak to go to Genesareth, he is always supposed to cross the lake, not in the same direction, but at an almost equal distance; and here again the text offers no difficulty. As a matter of fact we cannot argue this matter to any advantage, unless we have actually visited the places in question. According to our view of the matter, Bethsaida Julias has no connection with this account of the Evangelists unless the multiplication of loaves took place near Ouadi Semak, which is improbable because the place is too far from the two Bethsaidas, whereas if this were the case we would have to admit that the neighbourhood of Julias was the meeting-place appointed by Jesus. But if, as we think, this multiplication took place to the north- east of Tell-Hum, the ancient and real Bethsaida, the crowd must have been gathered at the foot of the hills which descend toward Abou-Zeineh, and the Apostles received the order to put out into the deep as though they were departing, whereas in reality they were to await the Master five kilo- metres away near Bethsaida. This explanation would also fit in with the puzzling text of St. Luke, for Jesus would really have gone toward Beth- saida in order to avoid the crowds, and would have been overtaken by them on the neighbouring mountains. * He represents the INIaster seated on the mountain (endBriTo) when the crowds arrived. In this case, we must understand the word i^f\6ii)v in the Synoptics as indicating not Jesus' leaving the boat, but His coming forth from His retreat and approaching the people. [91] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second wonderfully on the way. They were preparing in many places to start for the Paschal festivities, and it was enough to make known, in the towns and villages through which they passed, their project of proclaiming Jesus Messiah-King and their hope of forcing Him to under- take the leadership of a vast national uprising, in order to attract the pilgrims. The Galileans were of patriotic fibre and deeply religious ; and it is not surprising that every one was eager to take part in the popular movement, the result of which would be the restoration of Israel. The sight of this immense and interesting flock, thus seeking its Shepherd in the desert, excited Jesus' com- passion. Instead of going to rest, He stood before the people, welcomed them kindly, and began at once to in- struct them. He spoke long and particularly of the King- dom of God as it ought to be understood, and then healed the sick that were brought before Him. The hours went rapidly by under the charm of His consoling and beloved words. It was near the close of day. The Apostles, com- ing to Our Lord, said : "This is a desert place and the hour is now passed. Send away the multitudes, that going into the towns the}"^ niay buy themselves victuals." But Jesus replied : "They have no need to go ; give you them to eat." Then in a tone of loving irony that revealed their familiar relations with the Master, the Apostles responded: "Let us go and buy bread for two hundred pence,^ and we will give them to eat." This was probably more than their treasury contained. Jesus smiled at their anxiety. He knew a way of feeding this multitude at less expense. In order to make more manifest the great miracle He was about to accomplish, or, perhaps, to test the charity of ^ The Roman denarius was worth about seventeen cents. Hence here it was a question of expending thirty-four dollars; and this was exorbitant considering the resources which the Apostles had at hand. [92] BOOK II] JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD His disciples who found it difficult to part with their last resources, He again spoke to one of them, Philip, as if appealing to the practical mind and to the experience of an Apostle who, since he was of Bethsaida, ought to know the country : "Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat ?" Philip repeated the response of his colleagues, and, like a man who understood the matter in hand, he declared that, even though they were to take the two hun- dred penny-worth of bread proposed, there would not yet be food enough to enable each one to have a moderate share. Finally Jesus says: "How many loaves have you? Go and see." By ascertaining that no one had anything with him. He employed the best means of proving afterward that He alone had provided nourishment for all present. In their journey around the lake the crowds had but one thought, that of rejoining Jesus. The impatience of the soul makes one forget the needs of the body. Among all these people were found only five loaves of barley and two fishes.^ A boy was carrying them. The ready in- formation that Andrew, the usual companion of Philip, gives to this effect shows that they had already been con- sidering the matter. But what were these for so many.f* Still, Jesus had them brought to Him. Then He bade them to divide the multitude into groups of fifty or of a hundred persons, and these groups, drawn out in equal lines along the hillside, seated themselves on the carpet of green that spring had provided. The grass, indeed, was already high, as it was near the time of the Paschal feast. This chronological observation, which St. John inserts ' The lower classes for the most part ate barley bread. (II Kings vi, 1 0 , x^^, 1 ; etc.) The fishes mentioned here were baked or salted. St. John calls them oy^ipia in the language of the fishermen, who made salt fish their ordinary food. [93] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second In his narrative quite casually, as it were, throws a special light upon the great miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. At the very time when the Pharisees and the hie- rarchical party were making a display in Jerusalem of their vain and hypocritical piety in His Father's house. He was in hiding in the desert place, not daring to enter the Holy City, through fear of arousing prematurely the implacable hatred of His enemies. The crowd that has followed Him suffers from hunger, while all Israel is eat- ing of the Paschal Lamb under the eyes of the Levitical priesthood. His heart is moved at the thought, and His sovereign power determines to inaugurate the feasts of the new religion, preluding thus the institution of the great Passover, which is to be the joy of the future. The order He provides for in this vast and picturesque ban- quet discloses to us His intention of inviting this multi- tude to a kind of religious repast. Standing over the assembly, like a father in the midst of his family during the Paschal festival. He took the loaves, blessed them, and raised His eyes to heaven, giving thanks to God.^ Tliis was the solemn moment in which the miracle was being accomplished. Suddenly the bless- ing effected in His hands what it effects by slow and suc- cessive development in the bosom of the earth, when the harvest grows, with this difference that now it brings forth not the wheat, but the bread itself wliich is but a later transformation of the wheat. The one was no more difficult than the other to the Master of nature. He Who creates matter in all its various forms can, when He desires, create it directly in its final form. Jesus began ^ St. John uses the word evxapia-ritffas perhaps as if to say that here was a presage of the future eucharistic consecration. Probably St. Luke had the same thought in saying that Jesus blessed the loaves {tv\6yr)(rev aiirovs). (Comp. / Cor. x, 16.) This attitude of Jesus had profoundly impressed the multitude, and the four Evangelists purposely make note of it. [94] BooKii] JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD to break the loaves and to apportion the fishes. His gen- erous hand, unwearied, gave out the shares which, indefi- nitely renewed, passed from the Apostles to the multitude, until all had eaten and Avere satisfied. Now they num- bered five thousand men, not counting the women or the children who, following the Oriental custom, had to remain apart to take their repast. When they had finished, Our Lord bade them gather up what was left. It was becoming that what God had just given them by a miracle should not be left to perish. Twelve baskets full of bread ® and many fragments of fish proved that the multitude had found there in the desert a superabundant meal, without having recourse to Philip's two hundred pence. There could be no doubt that He Who had thus royally entertained them was more than man, and they cried out : "This is, of a truth, the prophet that is to come into the world." Who, then, was more worthy than He to govern the people for whom He was so well able to provide subsistence ? They were seized with the thought of proclaiming Him king by main force ^ even, and to proceed, perhaps, to have Him crowned in Jerusalem. It is certain that He Who by opening His hand could so easily let fall rations for His troops, was well able to raise a numerous arm}'^ and to march on to the surest triumph. Why delay longer the realisation of the national hopes.? With singular self-conceit, these good people, forgetting the true character of the Messiah- King and the thoroughly spiritual conditions of His King- dom, were desirous of a culmination. Jesus knew their ' These were probably the twelve travelh'ng-baskets of the Apostles. A Jew never journeyed without the basket in which he kept his eatables; hence Juvenal's line: "Quorum cophinus fcrnumque supellex" (Sat., iii, 15), and the epithet cistiferos applied by Martial to the sons of Israel (Epig., V, 17). ° The verb apirdCeiv sufficiently indicates this. [95] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second thoughts, and, unable to dispel their illusions, He fled to the mountain for recollection and for prayer. The night was passed, as well as a portion of the next day, in this semi-political deliberation.^^ The popular excitement was not calmed. There was even a danger of gaining over the Apostles. For they were only too ready to look for the inauguration of an earthly kingdom, and for a long time to come we shall see them dreaming of a warlike Messiah, enforcing His rule with violence, and, on the day following His victory, distributing to His favour- ites the first dignities of His empire. This was the first time they had beheld a multitude of five thousand enthusi- astic and excited men around the Master. They had only to procure His assent, and He was proclaimed King of Israel. Their ambitious aspirations could desire no bet- ter opportunity for success. Hence they readily shared, if they did not also foment,^ ^ the illusions and the extrava- gant boldness of the multitude. Delaying not another day, Jesus determined to remove them and to remain alone with the multitudes. He intended to dismiss them also, but only after He had made them listen to reason. Employing His authority,^ ^ therefore. He obliged the Apostles to enter their boat and to push out upon the deep, as if they were departing for good. In reality, they had received instructions to take their stand near by and to await Him in sight of Bethsaida.^^ Obedience on this >" In St. Matt, xiv, 15 and 23, two evenings are clearly marked out. " St. John vi, 70, 71, seems to indicate at least the connivance of Judas. Comp. also V. 66. '^ The Evangelists clearly say so; rivayKacrep . . . ffx0rjvat. '' As we have before observed, wherever we locate the scene of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, we must understand that Jesus arranged to meet His Apostles a short distance away. It was not in order that He might Himself make the journey on foot to Capharnaum that He sent them away, but to separate them from the crowds, who, with their ideas of an earthly Messiah, were gaining an influence over them. At the same time He leaves the multitude under the impression that He is not going to depart. Bethsaida [96] BooKii] JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD occasion must have been painful to them. Once alone, Jesus sought no doubt to persuade the people that they must seek shelter for the night. They, yielding to His ^ paternal advice and thinking to find Him again the next I day, consented to withdraw. The sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the weather was unfavourable. But while they supposed that the Master was at prayer, and were respecting His solitude, He was hastening toward Bethsaida,^^ to rejoin His disciples, as He had promised. The latter, though they had long since reached the point fixed as the place of reunion, were making vain efforts to land. The gale of the tempest that was violently raging drove them back again and again to the middle of the lake. A part of the night was passed in this useless labour. They were retreating instead of advancing. Already the third watch had passed.^ ^ Jesus, if He had continued on His way, must have arrived at Capharnaum.^® This thought, as well as the danger there was in strug- gling against the north-east winds, made the Apostles is certainly near at hand, and thus Jesus names it as a rendezvous. It is incredible that, wishing to go from the south of Buttai'ah to Capharnaimi. He should say to them : " Go and wait for me at five kilometres from Caphar- naimi. I will walk thirty-five during the night, and cross the ford over the Jordan, to rejoin you." This is against all reason, and by Betlisaida we must miderstand the nearest port, whitlier Jesus betook Himself at nightfall, and where He rejoined His disciples. We may note that Jolm does not mention ' this meeting appointed by Jesus, but he supposes it, as otherwise we could not explain why the disciples had departed witliout their Master, much less why they expected Him to rejoin them (verse 7) . '* We must not lose sight of the fact that tlie various places on the shores of the lake are not at a great distance from each other. It was not therefore to avoid the fatigue of going on foot that Jesus wished to rejoin those in the boat, but to be at peace far from the multitude and to be with His chosen ones. '^ At this epoch, the Jews, like the Romans and the Greeks, divided tlie night into four watches. The length of each, which should have been three hours, became longer or shorter, according to tlie season of the year. St. Mark xiii, 35, clearly distinguishes these four parts of the night : 6\f/e, fietro- vvKTiov, a\eKTopo(pwvlas irpait '' If our hypothesis as to the place of the miracle be well founded. He had only to descend by the western side of the mountain to reach Bethsaida. [97] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second decide to set sail at once for the final destination of their journey. Any halt on the way seemed as impossible as it was unnecessary. In the midst of the terrible squall, they were particularly eager to land at any point. At three o'clock in the morning they had covered a distance of only twenty-five or thirty furlongs from the shore. Jesus knew their distress and had pity on them. As all things were easy to the Lord of the elements, He ad- vanced straight to them who, notwithstanding their good- will, had been unable to come to Him. What Job had said of God, He fulfilled, and, stepping from the solid ground upon the liquid plain. He walked upon the waves as upon a floor. ^''^ Reaching the boat. He went ahead of it in the attitude of one who would mark out its way to Capharnaum.^^ When, in the middle of the night, between the waves as they hurled themselves upon one another, the Apostles perceived a human outline upright upon the water, they uttered cries of terror, believing they were in the presence of a phantom. Jesus came nearer, that He might be kno^vn. Their fright only increased the more. Then, in order completely to reassure them. He said: "It is I; be not afraid." At the sound of the well-known voice, the Apostles took courage at once, and multiplied their efforts to reach Him as He seemed to flee before them.-^^ They were eager to take Him Into the boat. But He kept on ahead. Surprised at this strange sight, they were in doubt what to think of It. Then, Peter expressing the thought of all, cried out: "Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come 'to Thee upon the " Job ix, 8. '^This is the most natural meaning of the words of St. Mark: 1}6€\fp irapiKQilv. '"Such seems to us to be the sense of St. John's expression: ¥)6€Kov \a$e7v, K. T. \., which otherwise would create a serious difficulty for the narration of the Synoptics. [98] BOOK II] JESUS MULTIPLIES BREAD waters." He doubted not Jesus' sovereign power, but the reality of His presence. "Come," said the Master to him. And Peter, flattered by being associated in the miracle that sustained Jesus upon the water, leaps from the boat and walks upon the waves. The wind was violent. The Apostle, overcome, thinks he has lost his balance. He begins to be afraid, he hesitates, and gradually sinks in the water. When faith is shaken, the miracle is checked. Peter can walk no farther; he sets out to swim. In the meantime, ahead of him, Our Lord stands straight and firm in the midst of the tempest, as if to prove that faith can withstand the elements. Peter calls to Him with gesture and voice : "Lord, save me !" Then Jesus, stretch- ing forth His hand, grasps him and lifts him up, saying : "O, thou of Httle faith, why didst thou doubt.?" And together they went into the boat, which had now come up to them. Then the waves were calmed, the winds were stilled, and it was found they had reached the shore where they were to land. Assuredly greater than that of any earthly king was the power of Him Who thus commanded nature herself. On the disciples' souls this miracle made even a livelier impression than that of the multiplying of the loaves. All who were in the boat fell on their knees before the Master. Their faces pressed to the ground, they exclaimed: "In- deed Thou art the Son of God !" They had disembarked, not at Capharnaum, but in its neighbourhood. This is what the Evangelists mean by naming the land of Genesareth. There again the in- habitants asked for and obtained many miracles. The Saviour, with inexhaustible kindness, healed all their sick and gave consolation to the afilicted. [99] CHAPTER III DISCOURSE ON THE BREAD OF LIFE The Partisans of a Political Messiah Rejoin Jesus AT Capharnaum — Jesus Rejects Their Earthly Views — How He Understands His Royalty — He Is the Bread of Life for Those Whom the Father Brings to Him — He Desires that Man Shall Re- ceive Not Only His Doctrine, but Also His Flesh AND His Blood, Which Are to Be Offered for the Life of the World — The Meaning of the Offer- ing— Perfect Communion — Dissension Among the Adherents of Jesus — Peter's Response — Hypocrit- ical Silence of Judas. (St. John vi, 22-71.) In the meantime the party of zealots, who were eager for the proclamation of the Messianic Kingdom, had re- appeared on the following day in the desert of Bethsaida, in the hope of again finding Jesus. Their disappoint- ment was great when they learned that He had departed. Boats that had arrived from the neighbourhood of Tibe- rias might have brought them definite tidings, and might have assured them that He had been seen on the opposite shore. It may be that these boats had been sent to bring this information and to fetch back to Capharnaum the leaders in the popular agitation. It is quite possible, in- deed, that these latter may have had some understanding [100] BOOK II] THE BREAD OF LIFE even within the ApostoHc circle itself. Have we not seen how Jesus' disciples shared with the multitude the de- sire of transforming the Messiah into an earthly king? Would not the worldly and selfish soul of a Judas seek with impatience every opportunity to hasten events in order the sooner to enjoy the material results he expected therefrom? Later on, under the influence of analogous sentiments, he connives no longer with the friends, but with the very enemies of Jesus. However that may be, the boats from Tiberias arrived most opportunely to carry to the other side those who wished to rejoin Jesus without delay, and to bring the group of revolutionists again around Him. When these enthusiasts discovered Him, in the synagogue of Caphar- naum, they approached Him with unfeigned eagerness. "Rabbi," they said, "how and when camest Thou hither?" To find Him again was to recover all their worldly hopes. Jesus knew it well, and, instead of replying to their ques- tion. He rebuked the intention that dictated it: "Amen, amen, I say to you, ye seek Me, not because ye have seen miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give you. For Him hath God the Father sealed." The lesson was direct. These ambitious agitators with their deep-felt longings are mistaken in seeking in Jesus the Thaumaturgus Who will feed His partisans, in- stead of the Teacher Who seeks to instruct His disciples. To ask of the Messiah barley-bread, when He off^ers moral life; to wish to make Him King of the earth, when He is King of Heaven, is to mistake His august character and to suppress His true grandeur. Like fools they have regard only to the body which is to be fed, to the earthly man who is to be satisfied, and as for the loftier, the spir- [ 101 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second itual, the divine side of man, they have no suspicion of it. It is a wof ul case ; for the Son of Man has not been chosen, marked, and consecrated by His Father for the vulgar mission of founding a pohtical kingdom; He has been sent to estabhsh the great society of souls and to lay the foundation of the spiritual city of the children of God. But the people made answer: "What shall we do that we may work the works of God .'^" With all their devotion to the Messianic cause they are astonished that they are not a part of the religious work that Jesus wishes to found. "This is the work of God," replies Jesus, "that ye believe in Him Whom He hath sent." God demands not partisans who will combat, but faithful hearts who will believe. Faith is the work He expects from men. In His sight they can do nothing greater or more necessary : nothing greater, since faith is the complete gift of one's self in the humiliation of the mind and in the sacrifice of the heart; nothing more necessary, since it is by faith alone, uniting our souls to Jesus Christ, that we are incor- porated in the Messianic Kingdom. In the synagogue, as in every public assembly, there were hearers of various dispositions. Besides those who had witnessed the multiplication of the loaves, and who were eager to learn of Jesus His real intentions, there were jealous Pharisees, incredulous teachers, who became indig- nant when they heard the youthful Prophet put Himself forward resolutely as the object of the faith of mankind. "What sign, therefore, dost Thou show," they said to Him sharply, "that we may see and may believe in Thee.^ What dost Thou work ? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat.^^ ^ This was a malicious effort to turn to their own profit the blame that Jesus had laid upon the people, and * Ps. Ixxvii, 24, 25 ; Exod. xvi, 4 and 15. [102] BOOK II] THE BREAD OF LIFE His refusal to continue to nourish them by a miracle. If He is the Messiah, let Him prove it by doing each day in the sight of all, that which He had already once done, in the desert. Moses acknowledged himself inferior to the Messiah, and yet he had nourished, not five thousand peo- ple on a single occasion, but the entire people during forty 3"ears, and that, too, not with barley-bread, but with bread from heaven. Jesus, taking up the comparison they have made, says to them : "Amen, amen, I say to you ; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world." Thus let there be no equivocation ; the bread of which Jesus speaks is not that of which His ques- tioners speak. They refer to a miraculous but material manna ; He, in these ambiguous words, means to convey that He Himself is a spiritual bread that is come down from heaven, and that it is through Him and by Him that the world is to live. If Jesus is not really God, nothing can be more astound- ing, more unheard of, more inexplicable than this assertion and the whole discourse that follows. For, after all, where could He have derived so certain and so perfect a knowl- edge of His future part in the history of mankind .f* It cannot be denied, in truth, that for nineteen centuries the world has asked life from Him, and that by Him as by an inexhaustible and ever-refreshing store of bread the world has been visibly nourished, through the assimilation of His thoughts. His morality, and His virtues. His beautiful response is too sublime for even the most favourably disposed portion of His audience to compre- hend. All that these ignorant Jews understand is that He is talking of a miraculous bread which is as material, how- ever, as the bread of the desert. With a simplicity that [103] LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second recalls that of the woman of Samaria, they declare that they are ready to be satisfied with it, and to follow Him Who will give it, wherever He may lead. "Lord," they say, "give us always this bread." At this point Jesus, resolutely remov- ing the veil with which He had cloaked His thought, puts an end to all misunderstanding at the risk of breaking with His most devoted followers : "/ am the bread of life!" He exclaims ; "he that cometh to Me shall not hunger ; and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst." They need look no farther; the food which at the same time is and gives real life is Himself come down from heaven, He Who being alive in God from all eternity, is come upon earth and is become incarnate in order to be the life of man. Man, therefore, has only to take, by an act of faith, and assimilate this divine food from heaven, and he will no longer feel either hunger or thirst in his soul. Unfortu- nately, though invited to this incredible communion, he hesitates to eat what would give him life. This thought saddens Jesus. "But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me, and ye believe not." This is a formal condemna- tion of a great number of His hearers. They have seen His works, have heard His discourses, yet they have not made the act of faith which would have brought them life. Will all mankind follow their example ? Assuredly not ; this would be contrary to God's plan. Jesus, Who seems to have been for a moment in silent thought, casts a sudden glance into the future, and His heart is reassured. "All that My Father giveth Me," He says, "shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out ; because I am come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. Now this is the will of the Father Who sent Me, that of all that He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again in the last day. And this is the will of My Father that sent Me : [104] BooKH] THE BREAD OF LIFE that every one who seeth the Son, and beheveth in Him, may have hfe everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day." Inevitably men shall rise up who will desire to assimilate the divine life placed at their disposal. But, come they whence they may, even from among the vilest of the Gentiles, they shall be welcomed. The bread of heaven shall be given them. Not one of those whom the Father has chosen shall die of hunger ; in the ardour of their faith they shall all live by that Jesus Whom they shall have con- templated, adored, and served with their most generous love. Thus it is that on the last day the multitude of the elect shall rise up full of life and beauty. Then the Son shall place in His Father's hands the flock that He shall have faithfully guarded, fed, and sanctified. These assertions touched the Jews on their most sensitive side. It was hard to learn that pagans might be preferred before themselves. Was He Who spoke thus the true Messiah of Israel.'' This fresh grievance aggravated the already strange pretension to be the bread of life come down from heaven, and a long-continued murmuring began to be heard in the assembly. "Is not this Jesus," they said, "the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know.? How then saith He: I came down from heaven.''" The Master makes no reply to this objection which pru- dence forbids Him to answer directly. To disclose the mystery of His divine conception would only have intensi- fied the scandal in the eyes of His questioners. But with that severe authority which His words at times assumed, He said to them: "Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father Who hath sent Me draw him,2 and I will raise him up in the last day. It is ^ The verb e\Kvtiv, which Jesus uses, does not imply the violent action of dragging a man against his will. It signifies an impulse given to one who was at first unwilling, but who, in the end, jjermits himself to be led on. The very text of Isaias, which Jesus quotes, indicates simply a persuasive in- [105] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second written in the prophets : And they shall all be taught of God.^ Every one that hath heard of the Father and hath learned, cometh to Me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, but He Who is of God,* He hath seen the Father." The faithful are therefore first chosen by the Heavenly Father ; it is He that opens their hearts, makes ready their souls, and, at times by the violent strokes of His mercy, at times by the sweetness of His grace, leads them, con- quered but happy, to the Son. His all-powerful influence accomplishes its work amid the ordinary incidents of life. A great grief that hurts, or a joy that exalts, a word that we read in the Holy Books, or that we gather from the lips of a true believer, a sudden light that dispels all doubt, all these are the voice of God. Though we have not seen Him in Himself — for this is the exclusive privilege of His only Son Who is in His bosom — we feel His influence, and, moved by a secret force which does not destroy our liberty, but only guides it, we are conducted to the Son. And then He begins His work: by His doctrine. He furnishes us with the great light of religion ; by His expiatory sac- rifice, He restores us to righteousness ; by His contact. He gives us life again. At last, comes the third agent in our moral sanctification, whom Jesus will name later on ; it is the Holy Spirit. It belongs to the Spirit to care for the converted soul ; to adorn it with His gifts ; to make it a temple, wherein God shall be duly honoured. Thus the two Persons who proceed from the Father bring back to fluence of God penetrating a docile nature with His grace and leading it where He will. The picture used here seems to remind one of the father of a family who accompanies his young child to the schoolmaster. The Father leads men to His Son's school ; and men, like children, seem to approach their preceptor only with difficulty. That is why they are drawn, but not with violence. ^ Isa. liv, 13, and Jer. xxxi, 33, etc. * After these words of the Master, we need not ask where St. John found the idea of his prologue : 6 &v napa rod 6eov is the exact counterpart of ?iv nphs rbv de6v. The Son is of the Father and wholly ivith the Father. [106] BooKii] THE BREAD OF LIFE the Father those whom the Father had chosen, the one by enlightening and redeeming them, the other by complet- ing their sanctification. Such is the invariable and sublime history of God, Who employs His power. His truth, and His love for His own glory in the exercise of His mercy. "Amen, amen, I say unto you," continues Jesus, with ever-increasing energy, "He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life! Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is the bread that cometh down from heaven, that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever ; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the hfe of the world." These last words are plainly a transition to a new order of ideas. Besides the bread which the Father has given to earth, there is the flesh which the Son gives for our resurrection. As bread, Jesus off'ers to humanity truth that nourishes the soul. As flesh and blood, He creates in us supernatural Hfe ; for it is by His sacrifice that He has accomplished our redemption. Hence man, to live a complete life, must be incorporated at the same time with Jesus the Teacher and with Jesus the Re- deemer. The first act is accomplished by faith which unites us with His thought; the second, by physical con- tact which should join us to His body bruised and immo- lated for our salvation. To grasp Christ in His whole divine being, moral and physical — that is for us the con- dition of the religious life. The greater the energy with which man attaches himself to this bread, this flesh, this blood, that are to nourish and to sanctify him, the greater will be the intensity of his life. He must bring God into his own life, and, his life being absorbed in the divine life, there must be henceforth in his enlightened [107] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second soul, in his transformed heart, in his sanctified flesh, but one hving being, Jesus Christ. These theories were far beyond the capacity of an audi- ence which, taking them hterally and with no thought of discovering their purport, exclaimed more violently than a moment before: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Their lack of intelligence cannot discourage Jesus. On the contrary. He insists on giving His words a sense that is more and more literal. "Amen, amen, I say to you : Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye shall not have life in you. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed." Here, without fur- ther metaphor, the precept is imposed in all its astonish- ing reality. That the union may be perfect and life as- sured, it is not enough that Jesus be eaten in spirit ; the mouth itself must receive Him ; a real eating of the victim off'ered for the human race becomes necessary.'' But is it human flesh that must be eaten ; is it blood, yet warm, that must be drunk.? The institution of the Eucharist will fur- nish the divine response to that question. After the Last Supper, the Saviour's flesh will be really, not the bloody, but the mystical food of mankind, and His blood, not tlie repellent, but the consoling drink that is offered to Chris- tians under the veil of the Sacrament. And now the last word in the divine plan tells us the marvellous results of the strange and heavenly repast to which Jesus invites us. "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent ]\Ie, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same * Jesus employs the most expressive terms to signify a physical assimila- tion : Tp(iya)i>, eating with the teeth ; nivwy, drinking as a beverage ; and He makes it certain that this is not a metaphor but a reality: a\ridws $pw(ris, [108] BooKu] THE BREAD OF LIFE also shall live by Me." True life has Its source in God alone, Who Is the Living Father, according to Jesus' expression. This life attains its bloom in His Word, and, in a visible manner for us, in the Man-God. To eat the Man-God is to bring within ourselves that which is in the Man-God Himself, and consequently the life of the Father; it is to unite ourselves to the Infinite, since we establish between ourselves and Jesus the same relation that exists between Jesus and His Father. Only, the Son derives His hfe directly from that of the Father, and, reproduc- ing it on earth under a human form. He places it within our reach. As earthly bread gives a share in the life of nature, the bread of heaven gives us a share in the life of God. It is called living bread because it bears the Living One^ and communicates Him to all who, by faith, desire to pos- sess Him. To be sure we absorb God less than God absorbs us ; but we are nevertheless the drop of water which, fall- ing into the sea, shares in its lofty risings, in the majesty of its calm, in the purity of its azure mass. Does commun- ion, then, really place the hfe divine in us.'* Yes, for it is Jesus Himself that says so, and it is easy to understand that the divine element entering into our souls through our bodies, engenders, sustains, and perfects therein the very principle of our supernatural life. The conclusion of this sublime discourse is an invitation to unite ourselves to Jesus, at present by faith, later on by the Eucharist, for there is no doubt that, mindful of His approaching death, appointing it even for the next Passover as the reality of the symbolic immolation of the lamb, He referred to the Institution that was to per- petuate its memory. "This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever." His hearers were more and more amazed at His words. [109] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second They had begun by murmuring and disputing ; they ended by giving expression to their indignant feehngs, to which, indeed, even some of the disciples were not strangers. "This saying is hard," they exclaimed, "and who can bear it?" No doubt, those who saw no possible realisation for the Master's words other than in a revolting and canni- balistic sense, had some reason for being repelled by this proposition. But they were wrong in attributing to Jesus such extravagant designs. His words must have had a more spiritual meaning, and it was for His hearers to discover it. Far from retracting them, the Master en- deavoured to maintain them in their literal and direct sense, merely hinting that there was a misunderstanding as to the manner of eating, which was to be in no way bloody. "Doth this scandalise you.''" He said. "If then you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before.''"^ They will then at least understand that there could be no question of eating flesh that is given out in portions like the flesh of a mortal victim. He who ascends to heaven after his resurrection cannot die again. This, therefore, is what will take place: Jesus will give Himself really, but under a mystical form ; substantially, but under the sacra- mental species that will recall His death; wholly. His humanity and His divinity together ; Himself entire, in a word, but multiplied, not divided. Then He shall appear as the Bread from Heaven, since, having come down from heaven. He will ascend again, and though eaten as a Victim here below, on high He will nevertheless ever be King, liv- ing and full of glory. Then shall men grasp at every reason to apply to themselves the doctrine and the supreme expiation of Him Who will have sealed His work with the prodigy of His Ascension. ' This allusion to the Ascension is the more remarkable since St. John says nothing later on of the Ascension itself. [110] BOOK II] THE BREAD OF LIFE Henceforth, if one wishes to comprehend that which seems to be incomprehensible, he must be penetrated by the words which the Master adds, and which dispel many diffi- culties. "It is the spirit that quickeneth," He says ; "the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." Let not the senses therefore endeavour to find the flesh of Jesus Christ; they will not discover it ; it is a mystical flesh ; it is for the spirit alone to find it, to feel it, to adore it while eating it. From the natural point of view, the Eucharist would be impossible. From the supernatural point of view, it is life in all that is sublime and ideal. He comprehends it who can silence his body, and can give ear to his soul alone, in the light of faith and in the ecstasy of love. Therefore, whatever doubts His hearers might have as to the character of the Messianic Kingdom, let them now be put aside. Its atmosphere is the purest spirituality. All earthly views, aU human means, all coarse appetites are excluded from it. The King, as Jesus has jiist said, gives Himself to be the food of His subjects' souls, and, by this giving, creates the close ties that bind His people to Him. In the supernatural gifts He off'ers and the religious homage He expects, material desires have no part. Nearly all the relations of the Master to His subjects are estab- lished in the higher, invisible world of spirits. Like swift- Avinged eagles, the faithful ever rise up to reach for the heavenly bread, to grasp it, and to eat it. For them it is a duty and a pleasure. The bread that is given is the King Himself, and all together, forming but one people, one family, the organism of one body, as it were, accord- ing to St. Paul's beautiful expression, they constitute the most holy, the most worthy, the most divine homage that earth can off'er to heaven. But, in all this, there was no trace of what had been [111] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second the dream of those ambitious disciples who, a few days before, had hastened to the Master's side. If by this explicit profession of faith, Jesus had wished to end all misunderstanding, His success was complete. He per- ceived it, for, says the Evangelist, He read in their hearts, and distinguished "those that did not believe, and who he was that would betray Him." Therefore, with an accent of profound sadness, He added: "There are some of you that believe not. . . . Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to Me, unless it be given him by My Father." It was a touching farewell addressed to all those who looked for a temporal Messiah. Deceived in their hopes, the politicians noisily withdrew. Their business was not with a spiritual Messiah, and they departed. Unfortunately this voluntary separation, which purged the Kingdom of God of a most dangerous leaven, did not extend to the Apostolic circle itself, where the criminal element was still represented. As if to force them to de- clare themselves explicitly, Jesus turns to the Twelve,'^ and says, "Will ye also go away.?" Peter with his customary ardour made himself the voice of all and answered: "Lord, to whom shall we go.'' Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that Thou art the Holy One of God." No one protested against this act of faith, the terms of which seemed to make it collective. Yet there was one who could not give his adherence to it; this was Judas. In a tone of sadness fully capable of penetrating and converting a soul less hypocritical, Jesus ' St. John suddenly speaks of the Twelve as if they had already been mentioned. In his Gospel he has spoken of the vocation of only five disciples and of the existence of an indeterminate but large group of faithful. So we see here another instance of his agreement with me Synoptics, St. Luke vi, 12 et seq.\ St. Mark iii, 13 et seq. TelUng that Jesus has chosen the Twelve, he says : e{€\e|(i/t7ji', while St. Luke vi, 13, says : iK\e^dfifvos. [112] BOOK II] THE BREAD OF LIFE said: "Have not I chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil." This awful utterance passed unheeded the heart of the wretched man, who declined to escape by the door thus opened to him. He assumed an impassive expression, and counted on the Master's kindness not to betray him. The truly wicked have confidence enough in the virtue of the good to repay them for their inexhaustible patience. From now on the position of Jesus in Galilee becomes difficult. Several of His disciples having given the exam- ple of defection, the people will manifest less enthusiasm and interest in Him. His enemies will profit by it to pursue Him more boldly, and, even in Galilee, where the harvest seemed to advance so rich in promise, the word of God threatens to remain fruitless. The word that gave the quietus to wretched human hopes was enough to com- promise everything : "The Messiah is not the King of men, but the King of souls." [113] CHAPTER IV THE PHARISEES AGAIN ASSUME THE OFFENSIVE Renewed Enthusiasm — The Ears of Coen Gatheeed AND Eaten on the Sabbath — Jesus' Twofold Re- sponse— The Sabbath Is for Man, Not Man for the Sabbath — Eating with Unwashed Hands — A Counter-Question in Reply — Jesus' Sublime Mo- rality: Only That Which Comes from the Heart Defiles a Man — The Anger of the Pharisees — • Jesus' Appreciation — His Explanations to the Disciples — The Man with the Withered Hand — Jesus Questions His Adversaries — They Refuse TO Answer — Their Resolution to Join with the Heeodians and to Put Jesus to Death. (St. Luke vi, 1-11; St. Mark ii, 23-28; vii, 1-23; iii, 1-6; St. Matthew xii, 1-8; xv, 1-20; xii, 9-14.^) When they saw that the Saviour's popularity was now on the wane, the Pharisees concluded that they could again assume the offensive, with some chance of success. They were returning from the celebration of the Paschal feast ' We have placed here the incident of the ears of corn cut on the second- first Sabbath, because chronologically we are not far from the date on which it must have occurred. The corn was ripe, and the particular Sabbath indicated by St. Luke was at this epoch. The cure of the man with the withered hand took place a short time afterward. The violent resolution which the Pharisees take and their alliance with the Herodians are here in their proper place. [114] BooKii] PHARISEES ASSUME OFFENSIVE in Jerusalem, Avhere they had again drunk in at its very- source the most ardent zeal and the most extreme formal- ism. To surprise the disciples of Jesus in formal opposi- tion to the prescriptions of the Rabbis was not difficult. The Master, by His example and by His counsel, had authorised them resolutely to suppress all those ridiculous observances which, like vile excrescences, disfigured the an- cient tree of the Mosaic law. They did not hesitate to do so. Hence the Pharisees were filled with increasing anger and indignantly protested. One Sabbath-day,- for instance, they had been seen violating the law of rest, and the scandal they gave was great. The circumstances were as follows : In company with the Master, they were passing by a field of ripened grain. They were fasting. Except in case of sickness, a faithful Israelite took nothing on the Sabbath-day before offering up his early devotions ^ in the synagogue. Oppressed with hunger, the disciples be- gan to gather some ears of corn * which they ground between their hands in order to eat them.^ Certain Phar- ^St. Luke names this day the second-first Sabbath. The question is, what does this word signify, and explanations are as numerous as they are uncertain. Some say that the second-first Sabbath was the first Sabbath of the second month of the year; others that it was the first of the seven Sabbaths extending from the second day of the Paschal week (16th of Nisan) to Pentecost. Others, again, understand it to be the first Sabbath of the second vear of the Sabbatic cycle. Quite recently it has been thought that the Jews had two first Sabbaths, one beginning the civil year in the month of Tisri (September-October), and the other the ecclesiastical year in the month of N'isan (March-April). The latter Sabbath would be called the second-first, while the former would be called the first-first. In any case, it is a question of a date shortly after the Passover. ^ Berac, i, 4. * From this account, found in all the SjTioptics, it is clearly seen that Jesus had passed one spring and, consequently, one feast of the Passover in Galilee, before that on which He was put to death. The Synoptics quite unexpectedly agree in this with St. John vi, 4. ^ In our joiu"neys in Palestine we have often seen this done. Our guides, with little or no respect for the property of others, gathered the almost ripe corn and ate it. [115] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second isees saw them and became indignant, not on account of the theft, which the law authorised,^ but because of the viola- tion of the Sabbath. Some of them directly attacked the disciples. "Why do ye do that," they said, "which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day.?" Others, in turn, ad- dressed the Master, since it was for Him that they had the greatest hatred: "Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath-day!" Is not this plucking and crushing of the corn tantamount to harvest- ing and grinding it ? Is it not doing servile work ? This misdemeanour was provided for in the tradition of the ancients. It was included in one of the thirty-nine cases marked out by the Rabbis on the subject of the Sabbatic repose."^ Jesus gave no time to the discussion either of the authority or of the reality of this prohibition. For His masterful teaching other ground and broader horizons were necessary. "Have ye never read," said He, "what David did when he had need and was hungry, himself and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God ^ under Abiathar, the High-Priest,^ and did eat the ' According to DeiU. xxiii, 25, one might, when hungry, gather ears of com with his hands, but not with the sickle. ' Maimonides, Schabba, ch. viii. * This expression refers here to the Ark of the Covenant, which was then at Nobe. (/ Kings xxi, 1.) * St. Mark mentions only Abiathar, and even this name is suppressed in some copies, the copyists being too much taken up with an apparent historical inaccuracy. In fact, it is Achimelech, father of Abiathar, who gives the loaves of proposition to David, who is fleeing from the wrath of Saul. He pays for his Kindness with his life. Yet we read (// Kings viii, 17, and / Paralipomenon xviii, 16) that Abiathar was father to Achimelech. It is not impossible that the father and the son were both called by the two names of Abiathar-Achimelech. This would be nothing new in the history of the Jewish people, and in this way an apparent error which is found in the Old Testament, before occurring in St. Mark, would be easily explained. Some exegetes do away with the diflBculty by translating Jesus' words as a literary reference: "Have ye never read ... in the section of Abiathar, the High- Priest?" The account He thus referred to was the hturgical fragment that contained the history of the priest of David. [116] BOOK II] PHARISEES ASSUME OFFENSIVE loaves of proposition, which was not lawful to eat but for the priests?" If David's act has always seemed to be pardonable in such circumstances, it is because natural law takes precedence over all positive laws. When that law speaks, all other laws must be silent. Is it not evident that God commands man to live, first, and then to observe ceremonial rites .^^ David, the great prophet and great king, had not hesitated a moment between the Mosaic obh- gation of respecting the twelve loaves placed on the golden table in the Tabernacle and the peremptory demand of nature that neither he nor those who were with him should be let die of hunger. Abiathar had approved of his action, since he himself had given him the holy bread. Were all these illustrious believers of the past less capable casuists than the modern Rabbis.'* How, indeed, was the evil in breaking an ear of corn on the Sabbath-day greater than in eating the loaves reserved for the priests ? Instances were abundant. According to St. Matthew, the Master cited another quite as topical as the first. "Or have ye not read," said He, "in the law that on the Sab- bath-day the priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and are without blame .P" Their functions necessitated acts which, in themselves, are servile works. Thus on that day they immolate the two lambs of one year old claimed by the Lord; they prepare the wood of the altar and burn a portion of the victims they have killed. Why, then, not- withstanding the law of Sabbatic rest, do they think that none of these things is forbidden them? It is because they deem themselves fully dispensed by reasons of a su- perior order, the necessities of the Levitical ministry, just as the urgent need of food, long before, dispensed David and his followers. "But I tell you," continued Jesus, "that there is here a greater than the temple." He meant, no doubt, the [117] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second ministry of the preaching of the Gospel. To the end that they might progress more rapidly, and more certainly glorify God by the spreading of the Good-Tidings, the Apostles might well pluck the corn and eat it, even on the Sabbath-day. Was it not more agreeable to the Lord to see them labouring at His work than to behold them ren- dering themselves incapable of serving Him by restricting themselves to useless observances.'' If the Pharisees under- stood that utterance of wliich He had once before reminded them: "I will have mercy and not sacrifice," instead of incriminating the innocent, they would conclude that to preach is better than to fast or to respect the Sabbatic rest. God loves us more for an act of charity toward our neighbour than for an act of piety toward Himself. Finally, He clearly solves the difl5culty by saying: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also." For the present the controversy ended there. But be- fore long another grave question was to spring up, which would force the Master to give the final blow to the authori- tative pretensions of Pharisaic ritualism. It was known and seen that the disciples of Jesus had no scruples in eating without having previously washed their hands. The Pharisees, on the other hand, had made the custom of these ablutions almost universal. They de- termined their number and manner ^"^ with the greatest care. Not only before and after meals, but on returning from a public place, whether the market or a popular assembly, they had to wash their hands, and, according to circumstances, to hold them, while being purified, at times down, and at other times elevated.^^ There was not an ^° In the treatise, Schukhan-Aruch, twenty-six prescriptions are given concerning the morning ablution of the hands. " St. Mark's expression, iay /x^ •fvyn^ yi\l/wvTai ras x^'P"^) has been vari- ously translated by interpreters. According to some, the Pharisees' principle [118] BOOK II] PHARISEES ASSUME OFFENSIVE object, even among the most necessary to the uses of life, that was not subjected to regular lustrations. The cups used at table, the vases of wood and of brass, the couches on which the guests reclined, if not cleansed in accordance with the strictest rules, might become a cause of impurity. The Pharisees thought that the supposed stain communi- cated to these various obj ects by profane contact was trans- mitted to the body, and through the body reached even to the soul. In this way, by simple neglect, the most just and most virtuous Jew could, unawares, be covered with stain and become wholly unworthy of communion with Jehovah. "He that sitteth at table," said the moralists of the Phari- sees, "without washing his hands, is as culpable as the man who gives himself to a harlot." ^^ Such being their principles, we may judge how angry they must have been at the independent attitude of the dis- ciples who publicly transgressed these extraordinary pre- scriptions. They exclaimed that it was scandalous, im- pious, and, after having publicly reprehended them, they turned to the Master, convinced that, now at least. He would not dare to countenance so flagrant a transgression of the law. "Why," said they in a tone of importance, "do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients.'' For they wash not their hands when they eat bread." By thus citing tradition they thought they said all that was needed ; they knew not, or feigned not to know, that this unlawful tradition, an invention wholly human imposed upon a superstitious and credulous people, came not from God,^^ but solely from the caprice and the hypocrisy of a was to wash one hand closed in the palm of the other; in the opinion of others, they dipped their hands in the water up to the wrist. The Vulgate rightly adopts the reading irv-yju^ and translates it by crebro, often. '^See Schoettgen, Ilor. Hebr., in h. 1. '^ They wrongly based this pretension on these passages of Deiit. iv, 14, and x^^i, 10 ; and on Levit. xv, 1 1 . [119] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second few men. To their questions Jesus, at first, opposes another: "Why do ye also transgress the command- ment of God for your traditions ? For God " — thus He proves His accusation — "said through Moses : Honour thy father and thy mother; and he that shall curse father or mother, dying let him die. But ye say:^* If a man shall say to his father or his mother : Let that wherewith I might have been able to assist thee be corban (that is to say, con- secrated to God), he is no longer suffered to do aught for his parents. The tradition that ye have invented maketh void, therefore, the commandment of God.^'^ And many '* The Rheims version, from which we have ventured to depart in this passage, is rendered obscure by a too literal adherence to the Vulgate. The author, it will be observed, has adhered to the Greek text, and we have thought it wiser to follow him. — Translator's note. *5 As explained in St. Mark vii, 11, and supposed in St. Matt, xv, 5, the Hebrew and Aramean word qorbdn signifies "gift, ofjering." This pas- sage has been variously interpreted by exegetes. The conciseness of the text supposes that Jesus cited a saying that was familiar to the Jews and quite intelligible to every one. Documents are, at present, lacking for the elucida- tion of its precise meaning. Studying the words Kopfiav (8 i ikv i^ ifjLov u(i\eis. [196] BOOK 11] FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES passion on thee?" This condescension touches us ; the king makes a comparison where all comparison seems impossi- ble ; for he had been kind who owed nothing, and the guilty man has been cruel who owed everything to the king. This comparison explains what follows. The master at once summons the criminal ; this in itself is a sign of anger. One feels that severity is about to take the place of indul- gence. It is time for inexorable justice, and the culprit is handed over to the torturers ^ until the entire debt is paid. It has been rightly observed that since the debt had already been forgiven, the king could not justly have proved false to his word. This is undeniable, and we know that "God's gifts are without repentance." But here we must understand that the servant is thrown into prison, not for a debt already settled and forgotten, but for the heartlessness and unusual barbarity which he had just manifested. However, it is his forgiven debt that still determines the degree of his malice and his guilt. In this way we may solve the difficulty which the Scholastics, after St. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church,^ raised concerning the reviviscence of remitted sin. God, summoning the wicked servants before Him by death, will not demand a new account of sins pardoned, but He will place His mercy and theirs with pitiless severity side by side, and all the sins that have been covered by the divine indulgence shall fall like an aggravating circumstance upon the scales of eternal justice. The unfortunates shall * The torturers here are simply the jailers who guard their prisoners in captivity, or even those men who, by Roman law, can torture debtors with the lash and with leaden shot. (Cf. Livy, ii, 23.) • »St. Aug., De Bapt. c. Donat., i, 12; St. Greg, the Great, 1. iv. Dial. c. Ult., etc.; St. Thom., Summa, 3 p., q. 88; Cajetan, on the Epistle to the Romans, xi, 21, have solved exactly this very difficulty: "Repetuntur debita semel donata, non ut fuerant prius debita, sed ut mode eflFecta sunt materia ingratitudinis." [ 197 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second be cast into prison where they shall endure woes upon woes in vain for the payment of a debt which in their helpless- ness they can never pay. They shall pay forever and shall never wipe out the debt. "So, also," Jesus adds, ending the parable, "shall my Heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts." [198] CHAPTER XI THE SUMMONS TO MANIFEST HIM- SELF IN JERUSALEM The Worldly Arguments of Jesus' Brothers — The Motives That Inspire Them — The Feast of Taber- nacles IN Jerusalem — Summons to Appear in His True Light — The Views of Divine Wisdom — Jesus' Hour — The Ministry in Galilee Is Ended. (St. John vii, 1-10.) There is a moment in human undertakings when all things seem to conspire in demanding from those who con- duct them supreme and decisive resolution. If Jesus had been merely a man, we might say that for Him this mo- ment had arrived. Not only was Judea hostile to Him — we know ^ that He refrained from appearing there again lest He might push too far the homicidal hatred of His adversaries — but even Galilee was at last assuming a threat- ening attitude. Emissaries from Jerusalem were actively at work. Several of His first followers, startled by His declarations and deceived in their hopes, had publicly de- serted Him, and were seeking to separate from Him those who were still faithful. The Apostles themselves were passing through a moral crisis fraught with danger. It was time for a diversion. St. John vii, 1. [199] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second When Hannibal was encamped almost at the gates of Rome, Scipio deemed it necessary to hasten beneath the walls of Carthage, and by this daring stroke to restore all when all seemed lost. It was in this wise, probably, that those relatives of Jesus argued, whose singular conduct at this time is de- scribed for us in the Fourth Gospel. They found, on the one hand, that the situation was becoming critical for Him in C'apharnaum, and, on the other, that an opportunity for appearing in Jerusalem could neither be delayed nor be better chosen. It was near the Feast of Tabernacles. This was the last great solemnity of the Jewish year. It was cele- brated with an enthusiasm, a concourse of caravans, a boisterous excitement, all of which was calculated to aid any daring attempt in the way of Messianic manifesta- tion. Established at first to celebrate the memory of Israel wandering in the desert, it derived a new meaning from the particular circumstances of time and season. On the fifteenth of Tisrt, the end of September, the vintage was over, and with it ended the series of the principal har- vests of the year.^ Thanksgiving was then offered to the Lord for the fruits given to earth. And, afterward, the principal object of the feast being the commemoration of the events in the desert, the Jews devoted themselves to characteristically symbolical demonstrations. They left their houses, and, in tents or huts of leafy branches, they took up their quarters for eight days on the terraces, in public squares, and on the ramparts. In the Temple, the morning libations commemorated the miraculous water that had leapt from the rock beneath the rod of Moses, and in the evening the two candelabra represented the pillar of fire that had guided the people amid the sandy deserts ' The Jewish year commenced on the twelfth of October. [200] BOOK II] TO MANIFEST HIMSELF of Pharan. Sacrifices of thanksgiving served as a final expression of the people's gratitude.^ The multitude was the greater since the season afforded leisure to every one, and because, again, whoever had for any reason been dis- pensed from appearing at the other two feasts of the Jewish year, was obliged to be present at this one. One's absence would have exposed him to the severe criticism of every true Israelite. Moved by these considerations, the brothers of Jesus, who were preparing to go up to Jerusalem, came to Him, and said: "Pass from hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see thy works which thou dost ; for there is no man that doth anything in secret, and he liimself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, manifest thyself to the world." A corner in Galilee is not the proper theatre for one who calls himself the Mes- siah. If He is sure of His power and of His mission, why address Himself longer to these poor people who are incapable of appreciating Him? The place where He must manifest Himself is Jerusalem. There learned men may hear Him and judge of Him ; there the Temple is, the House of God and of the people wherein the new Kingdom ought to be inaugurated ; there are proselytes whose faith is long standing, and who deserve an authentic confirma- tion of their nascent faith; there innumerable pilgrims shall be found, and to show Himself there will be to mani- fest Himself to the whole world. On the other hand, to delay longer in these obscure surroundings will give the impression that He fears the light, and that all these works, apparently astonishing, cannot bear a serious ex- amination. ' During this festival there were sacrificed seventy calves for an expiation, it is said, of the sins of the seventy nations of the earth. This immolation began with thirteen on the first day, which number gradually decreased by one each day. The close brought the offering of one bull and seven lambs. [201] LIFE OF CHRIST [paht second Such was the language which the brothers of Jesus uttered naturally and unaffectedly and which St. John has courageously preserved for us. These brethren of Jesus were Joseph and Simon, with their sisters and their broth- ers-in-law, but not James and Jude, who belong to the Apostolic college. As the Evangelists say, they had not yet acquired that exact conception of their kinsman which true believers ought to have. They suspected, of course, that He was an extraordinary Being, for they could not be indifferent to what they saw and heard; but a solemn demonstration of His real character seemed to them desira- ble and alone capable of putting an end to all uncertainty. All these considerations, which, perhaps, might have in- fluenced a mere man, failed to move the Son of God. He did not fear the light, as we shall see ; but, knowing the hour of Providence, He did not intend to anticipate it. His Messianic work was not finished, and He could not think of shortening its development. He had scattered, in- deed, strong germs of life and of truth in certain souls ; He had brought together a nucleus of believers, greatly dimin- ished of late, but henceforth constant and enduring ; He had fortified His disciples under the blasts of persecution ; He had enlightened them as to the future ; He had dispelled all the illusions of their carnal hearts ; but, were He to disappear on the morrow, what would be the lot of this young and frail organisation .f* A few days more of pa- tient teaching will not be too much for the completion of a religious formation so vigorously outlined, but so evi- dently incomplete. Were He, on the other hand, to follow the caravans to Jerusalem, and arrive there with noisy display, the object of an ovation, would He not provoke the fury of the Pharisees, give them time to plot His ruin, in a word precipitate on the following day the crime which is not to be consummated for six months yet to come.'' [202] BooKn] TO MANIFEST HIMSELF The Son of Man must die on the Feast of the Passover, not during the solemnity of Tabernacles. All this was writ- ten long ago. Jesus reads it in the prophecies and in the divine light that floods His soul. Besides, He has no wish boisterously to be proclaimed a king ; He will have no tri- umph won by surprise, or, as we would say to-day, by political strategy. He will achieve His work with patience. He will go on spreading the light here and there, do- ing good, quietly gaining over a few souls, and then He will die. When the time Is come, Jesus will be seen going up to Jerusalem, and nothing will be able to check Him in His supreme resolution. It is not that courage is wanting in the Martyr, nor generosity in the Victim. For the time being He calmly pursues His victorious career by ways that men cannot understand, because they are the ways of God. This is why He responds: "My time Is not yet come; but your time Is always ready." Their situations are quite diflPerent. He has His mission. His fame. His views ; they are actuated only by curiosity, by the desire to satisfy their longings, and a readiness arising from an absence of danger to themselves. He Is the sign of contradiction destined to arise in the midst of the multi- tude ; they are unknown pilgrims ; He is the voice that accuses and is detested ; they are accepted allies or un- noticed non-partisans. "The world," He says, "cannot hate you; but Me It hateth, because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up (now)* to this festival day, * Of all the several ways of interpreting the Master's words in a sense exclusive of all shiftiness or mental restriction not in keeping with the sim- plicity of His character, this has seemed to us the best. The adverb now, which seems to be inserted into the text, is implied in the verb in the present indicative. Many interpreters make Jesus say : " I go not up to this feast to take part in it " (pour la solenniser) ; because He intended to arrive only at the close of the celebration and in secret. [203] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second because My time is not accomplished." He does not say that He will not appear there at all, but simply that He will not go there with His relatives. This is plain from His affirmation, which is in the present tense : "I go not up." The sense of these words would have been quite differ- ent had He employed the future tense. Besides, whatever was vague or even obscure in His reply, as a result of the form He used, was intentional. Inasmuch as He did not wish to arrive on the first day of the feast in order not to give His enemies time to hatch a plot against Him, He could not, for this same reason, positively intimate that He would come before the end of the festival. His family, therefore, departed, and He remained in Galilee. His plan was, by following them a few days later, to let the impression spread that He was not in the Holy City, and then arrive when He was no longer looked for. Appearing unexpectedly In the midst of the religious enthusiasm. He will inflict swift blows upon His enemies, and will disappear before they are able to contrive any serious scheme against Him. Thus, according to His wise foresight. He will arrive soon enough to manifest Himself to the multitude and late enough to escape the malice of His enemies. [204] BOOK III Period of Combat in Judea Section I First Conflict on the Feast of Tabernacles CHAPTER I THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF JESUS DURING THE FESTIVAL The Various Opinions of the Multitude with Regard TO Jesus, Whom They Would Like to See — His Sudden Appearance in the Temple — He Presents His Apology for His Teaching and His Conduct — Categorical Declarations Regarding His Origin — The Higher Authorities Cause Him to Be Watched — The Solemn Warning and Threat Which He Addressed to His Enemies. (St. John vii, 11-36.) As a matter of fact, Jesus turned His steps toward Jerusalem shortly after the departure of the caravans. His journey was made without commotion. He took with Him perhaps only a few of His disciples,^ not wishing to be noticed on the way. He went as if in disguise » St. John ix, 2. [205] LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second through the various places He passed.^ In the meantime Jerusalem was given up to the joys of the festival. The spectacle of the metropolis transformed into a camp of fervent pilgrims, the memories of the divine protection in the desert — renewed in the ceremonies of the Tem- ple— the glad canticles, the public processions in which each one carried sacred palm-branches, the feasts themselves in which all were united in common aspira- tions toward a better future, all contributed to exalt the mind and to reawaken the ancient hopes of the people of God. Jesus' name had naturally been heralded by those who had witnessed His works and heard His declarations. His friends repeated His name with enthusiasm; His enemies attacked it with fury ; strangers desired to know Him. Hence the great excitement remarked by the Evangelist: "The Jews,^ therefore, sought Him on the festival day and said: Where is He.'*" He refers here to the hostile portion of the people who, grouped behind their leaders, betrayed by their very impatience the perversity of their intentions.* As for the pilgrims, they were much less unanimous in looking upon Jesus with an unfavourable eye. Their thoughts of Him were various. Some said: "He is a good man." And others said : "No, but He seduc- eth the people." Between these two extremes there was a multitude wavering, undecided, not daring to pronounce 2 St. John vii, 10. ^ It has been observed with good reason that St. John has distinguished between the Jews and the multitude. For him the Jews are the nation which follows the influence of its chiefs and is personified in them. They always act in a spirit hostile to Jesus (verses 11 and 13, etc.). The multitude, or the people, represents a whole made up of individuals with different sentiments, malevolent or favourable (verse 12, etc.). These are people from all parts, and the Evangelist distinguishes them from the inhabitants of Jerusalem (verse 25). * The term used to designate Jesus Christ, inuvos, manifests the hostility of those who speak. [206] BOOK III] THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES either way, so long as the supreme authority had not yet passed judgment. Suddenly, when the festival was at its height, the much- discussed Jesus appeared in the Temple, and began pub- licly to teach.^ He surprised first of all the Jews, just as once before He had astonished His compatriots in Naza- reth, by the sublimity of His doctrine. "How," cried they in amazement, "doth this man know the Sacred Scrip- ture having never learned.'"'^ They knew the condition of His family, the occupation of His boyhood and youth, and they could not understand how He, never having been a disciple, had become a teacher, expounding the Sacred Text with the aid of happy comparisons, venturing to speak in public, and achieving a great success. They knew not that there is a Master Whose eloquence is quite different from that of the Rabbis for the formation of disciples : namely, God the Father ; and there is an author- ised teaching more sublime than that of the Synagogue: namely, that of Heaven. "My doctrine," answered Jesus, "is not mine, but His that sent Me. If any man will do the will of Him, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself." In fact, the true way to prove the divine origin of the Gospel is by desir- ing to do what God demands of us. This desire is noth- ing else than the sincere love of good in general, the observance of the moral law set forth by conscience and revelation. To be good through the inclination of the heart facilitates the working of the intelligence; to be evil, on the contrary, multiplies the mists that rise from ' It was probably on the Sabbath-day, falling within the octave of the feast, that He made His sudden appearance. The theme of His discourse seems to indicate this. Excepting the first and the last day, the intervening Sabbath-day was the most solemn of the whole octave. ° The expression ^eixaBriKeos must be taken in an absolute sense, and it demonstrates once more that Jesus had never frequented any school, [ 207 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [paht second the heart to the mind and darken the understanding ; for, as Pascal has so happily said, "If in order to love human things we must know them, in order to know divine things we must begin by loving them, and we reach the truth only by the way of charity." The Jews, therefore, have only to desire good — to do it is, perhaps^ beyond their strength — and naturally they will seek the Gospel which is the meeting-place of all men of goodwill. The honest- minded man who is seeking his ideal, will find it so com- plete in the words of Jesus, that he will be forced at once to acknowledge the divine origin of these words. He alone can have created a doctrine so marvellously adapted to man's aspirations, Who Himself created man's heart. The happiness, the peace, the satisfaction experienced by the soul that practises the lessons of the Gospel furnish at once the most eloquent demonstration both of the origin of tliis same Gospel and of its divine authority. In addition to this, we can, according to Jesus, reach the same demonstration by a more direct way: "He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory," says Jesus ; "but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him." It is easy to analy^se the teaching of the Gospel. Does the Master speak for His own interest or for the glory of His Father .'' It is evidently for the glory of His Father, it is for Him that He labours ; it is His cause that He defends. There- fore He is come for God; therefore He is God's messen- ger ; therefore His words are the words of Him Who sends Him, and His work consists not in deceiving the multi- tudes, but in bringing them back to God by the fulfilment of duty. Hence He can protest against all accusations of jealousy, and declare that His discourses are worthy of faith and His work free from injustice. He does not assume for Himself the honour that is due to God. [208] BOOK III] THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES It is different with the princes of the hierarchical party, who spend their hves in seeking the consideration of the multitude by flattering its evil passions.^ God's glory is not their chief thought. They wish above all to glorify themselves, and for that purpose they work iniquity and falsehood. "Did not Moses give you the law," said Jesus, challenging His enemies, "and yet none of you keepeth the law.'"' In fact, they suppress it whenever it checks their passions. In vain does it forbid homicide in any form, for these pious Israelites are even now preparing some one's death. More than this, the murder they are medi- tating will bear the character of an awful sacrilege ; for Moses has not only written : "Thou shalt not kill," but he has also given us the words of Jehovah announcing the Prophet of the future Who is to be the great Law-giver of His people: "And he that will not hear His words, which He shall speak in My name, I will be the avenger." ^ But the princes of the people mean not only to close the Heav- enly Envoy's lips, but even to do away with Himself by assassination. "Why," cries out the Master energeti- cally, "why seek you to kill Me?" Is that obedience to the law of Moses .^ They know well how to quote that law when they wish to accuse Jesus of having violated the Sabbath, and these who now scorn its gravest pre- scriptions will defend it with energy when there is ques- tion of secondary precepts which a reason of a higher order can always annul: "Thou hast a devil; who seeketh to kill Thee?" exclaimed some who heard Him, in ignorance of the situation or through hypocrisy.^ Overlooking this ' St. John V, 44, and xii, 42. ' Deut. xviii, 19. ° Certain exegetes put this interruption as coming from the lips of Jesus' followers, who are unaware of the plot against His life. It is more probable that it came from the very ones whom Jesus was immasking and whose fury knew no bounds. We shall soon see that the designs of these persons were a .secret to no one (v. 25) ; and, besides, this question is so insulting that it [209] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second insulting interruption, Jesus recalls the incident that had marked His last visit to Jerusalem and the serious threats of which He had been the object because He had cured the paralytic. "One work I have done," says Jesus, "and you all wonder." ^^ It was modest to speak thus of a great miracle and to liken it to servile work, careless of the supernatural character which might render it a decisive argument in the discussion. But He thinks it useless to employ all His arms to confound His adversaries. "Therefore Moses gave you circumcision," He contin- ues, "(not because it is of Moses,^^ but of the fathers;) and on the Sabbath-day you circumcise a man." As the law-giver directed that the child should be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, there was a conflict between two diff'erent laws when this day coincided with the Sab- bath. But in this case, no Jew hesitated to sacrifice the Sabbath in favour of the circumcision, for the reason that the Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath. Then the Master concludes : "If a man receive circumcision on the Sabbath-day, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry at Me because I have healed the whole man on the Sabbath-day.?" The argument was wholly conclusive, for in circumcision there was a material would be out of place on the lips of Jesus' followers. His enemies accuse Him of having a devil : SatiJ.6i'iov ex^is, which is equivalent to being a fool. (St. John X, 20, and St. Matt, iv, 24.) " The verb Bavfid^w signifies here the mingled astonishment and irrita- tion caused by a flagrant violation of the law. The explanation of this is seen in the words that follow later: i/xol xo^^^f. "are you angry at Me ?" " It may be that this parenthesis is the Evangelist's. However, it is more commonly admitted that it is Jesus', and that the Master is careful to pre- vent any accusation of inexactitude after the assertion concerning His knowledge made shortly before. He observes therefore that the prescrip- tion as to the circumcision of male children is falsely attributed to Moses. It dates from Abraham. (Gen. xvii, 10; xxi, 4.) Moses, writing the his- tory of the people of God, notes its institution. That, no doubt, is why it may have been said to come from him. In reality, he simply mentions it as a tradition to be preserved. (Levit. xii, 3.) [210] teooKiii] THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES work, requiring preparation and special care, whereas in the cure with which they found fault, an act of the will had sufficed ; the transgression of the Sabbath in order to circumcise was a very ordinary thing, and the same for the sake of healing a sick man was merely an excep- tion. In the first case, it was a matter simply of the con- secration of a man to God ; in the second, Jesus had healed the entire man, in soul as well as in body;^^ finally, cir- cumcision was merely a ceremony dating back to Abra- ham, while charity was the natural law itself, inscribed by God in the heart of the first man and of his posterity. The hypocritical malice of the Pharisees is, therefore, evi- dent. Jesus is content simply to add in all gentleness: "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment." This was equivalent to saying that works are to be judged less with the eyes of the body than with those of the soul. To do otherwise is, in the study of the law, to accept the letter and neglect the spirit. This sound logic silenced adversaries who could do noth- ing except through falsehood, malevolent insinuations, and secret plottings. Since, therefore, no one arose to con- tradict Him, Jesus remained master of the field. Some, however — they were people of Jerusalem, better informed of the plans of the hierarchical party than the others — were astonished that He should be suffered to have the final word in a public discussion and be allowed to triumph with so much honour. "Is not this," said they, "He Whom they seek to kill.'' And behold He speaketh openly, and they say nothing to Him. Have the rulers known for a truth that this is the Christ.'' But we know this man whence He Is : but when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is." Although the teachers of Israel could not ignore "The miraculous cure with which they reproach Jesus, had effected a remission of sins. [ 211 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second the origin of the Messiah, since they clearly read in their books that He would come forth from Bethlehem and from the race of David,^^ the people were less enUghtened. They looked for a Messiah who would come unexpectedly, like a man fallen from heaven whose generation would be unknown, and whose triumph would be as swift as light- ning. These ideas, or better, these assumptions were born of the confusion produced in the minds of the multitude by the twofold nature, human and divine, of the Heavenly Envoy. They were pleased to retain these vague beliefs with their special character of the wonderful and mysteri- ous, instead of correcting them by an attentive study of the texts,^* which would restore the truth in its own light. It is quite true that the Christ would advance upon the clouds of heaven, that His reign had begun in eternity, that His generation was unspeakable, but all this was said of His divine nature, while the prophecies concerning His family. His place of birth, His time, were spoken of His human nature. Ever ready to make use even of the difficulties opposed to Him, in order to triumph, Jesus takes up the objec- tion, acknowledges its worth, and immediately derives from it an argument to prove His character as Messiah. It is true, the origin of the Messiah must remain a mystery to His contemporaries, but is not the origin of Jesus Him- self a mystery? "You both know Me," He said, raising His voice in the Temple in order to be heard by His ad- versaries, "and 3^ou know whence I am,^^ and therefore " See St. John vii, 42, and St. Matt, ii, 5, 6. "/sa. liii, 8; Mich, v, 2. '^ The text preserved by St. John is so concise that we feel obliged to develop it in order to render it intelligible, notwithstanding our custom of adding nothing to the words of Our Lord. The following are the exact words: "You know whence I am, and I am not come from Myself; but He that sent Me is true. Whom you know not. I know Him, because I am from Him and He hath sent Me." The Evangelist observes that in pronouncing [212] BOOK III] THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES you refuse to recognise Me as the Messiah. But you know naught of Me, but that which concerns My human nature ; there is another part that escapes you and in which I fulfil the condition required of the Messiah; in this part you know not whence I am. I am not come of Myself; the truth is that some one has sent Me and Him you know not.^® Cease, therefore, denying Me this characteristic mark of being unknown which the Messiah must bear, and, in keeping with your own ideas, admit the legitimacy of My mission." There is a yet more intimate and, so to speak, more categorical mark of His superior nature : namely, that although no one knows that real Being Who delegates the Messiah, He knows Him, both because He shares in His essence, having proceeded as the Word from His bosom,^^ and because, as man. He has been in com- munion with Him in receiving His mission: "I know Him, because I am from Him, and He hath sent Me." This response, so clear, so peremptory^ could not but have the twofold result of exasperating His declared ene- mies and of arousing faith in undecided souls. For imme- diately we see the crowd separate into two distinct groups. Some desire to lay hold on Jesus and close His lips by violence ; others say among themselves : "When the Christ Cometh, shall He do more miracles than these which this man doth.''" The enthusiasm of the latter renders power- less the hatred of the former, and they dare not attempt what they desire ; because, as the Evangelist says, Jesus' hour was not yet come. these words Jesus cried out fKpa(ev, and that He was in the Temple, that is, right before the eyes of His enemies. ' " There is something like harshness in telling the Jews, who regard them- selves as the only adorers of the true God, that they do not know this God. Jesus here considers God, as the Father, in relation with His Son, ^Tiom He begets from all eternity, and Whom He sends in time. As the God of deism, the Jews know Him ; as the God of the Trinity, He is altogether beyond them, since they do not recognise the Son, Who has come to them. ^' St. John i, 2, 18; vi, 46, 62. [213] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second However, exasperated by the popular movement in favour of the young Prophet, and unwilling longer to listen to His praises, the Pharisees, acting in concert with the chief -priests, obtained a squad of police officials who were to keep watch on Him and seize Him at the first favourable opportunity, however slight. For He might, at any moment, furnish a chance for judicial action by a few seditious words, and, even in the midst of His vehement attacks, compromise His popularity, and find Himself deserted by all. Jesus soon became aware of this hostile surveillance, and was distressed by it. The police ready to lay their hands upon His shoulder and to arrest Him, the audacity of His enemies in daring to undertake such forceful measures against His person, the isolation of which He was still con- scious in the midst of multitudes, all united in an endeavour to disconcert His courage. With an accent of sadness capa- ble of recalling those honest hearts that still hesitated. He exclaimed : "Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go to Him that sent Me." These, then, were the last days of divine mercy. After having seen the miracles, heard the discourses, received the grace of the Saviour, there was nothing more to do but to hasten and join themselves to Him by faith. A few months more and it will be too late ; He shall have been removed by the enemy. "Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me; and where I go, thither ye cannot come." This threat was to have a most terrible fulfilment. For, some time after this, Jesus was taken from the midst of His people, and those who had not believed in Him when alive, have sought Him since and seek Him still, but find Him not. This unfortunate Jewish people calls in vain with most touching supplications for the Deliverer foretold by the prophets; the Deliverer comes not. Israel, look- [214] BOOK III] THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES ing to the future for Him Who has ah'eady come, cannot meet Him on the way. Israel shall therefore die without a Saviour in time and without hope for eternity. They alone enter the Kingdom of Heaven who have joined them- selves by faith to its true Founder and Chief, Jesus of Nazareth. These words of the Master were beyond the understand- ing of His hearers ; and they began to say ironically : "Whither will He go, that we shall not find Him? Will He go unto the dispersed ^® Greeks, and teach the Gentiles.'' What is this saying that He hath said : Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me ; and where I am, ye cannot come .'"' In the eyes of the Jews what could be more extravagant and more ridiculous than that the Messiah should preach to the Gentiles and establish among them the kingdom which He could not found in Israel.'' They therefore laugh sarcastically at the pretensions which their igno- rance attributes to Jesus. Not comprehending these words, they treat them with derision. But their insolent mockery shall be none the less the story of the future. The Mes- siah, borne on the Apostles' lips, shall soon go to the nations of the earth to establish Himself among them. St. John, who wrote among the Greeks, took pleasure in inscribing in his Gospel these jests of the Jews, to show how God can, when He will, without departing from the ways of His wisdom, punish the sarcasm of the impious by insuring its most terrible realisation. ^* Some authors have understood these words, t^i/ Staa-jrophv tS>v 'EW-fiovuv, to mean the Jews Uving outside of Palestine ; in this they wrongly rely on the First Epistle of St. Peter i, 1, and on that of St. James i, 1. For, in that sense, the Evangelist would have to use the term "E.\Ki)viffrai. "EWTj^es is here put in opposition with the Jews, and means the Greeks or the Gentiles. We should, therefore, take this as meaning the Greeks dispersed throughout the world, that is to say, the nations that speak the Greek language, civilised peoples. (See Acts xiv, 1 et 'passim ; Rom. xi, \Q et passim.) [215] CHAPTER II THE SOLEMN DECLARATION ON THE LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL The Day That Came After the Seventh — The Sol- emn Libation — The Various Meanings of This Cere- mony— Its Prophetic Signification — Jesus' Solemn Declaration : He Is the True Source of Living Water — The Impressions of the Multitude as They Heard Him — They Dare Not Lay Hands on Him — The Conference of the Sanhedrim After THE Return of the Emissaries — Nicodemus' Plea. (St. John vii, 37-52.) Ordinarily the Feast of Tabernacles lasted only seven days. The prescriptions of Moses were explicit on this point. ^ But to this sacred week was added, either as a commemoration of the entrance into the promised land, or as a conclusion of all the feasts of the year, an eighth day which Moses had directed to be solemnised without clearly declaring its mystical sense.^ This additional Feast of the Azareth, which was celebrated by an absolute rest and a general reunion in the Temple, was so well accepted as a necessary appendix to that of the Taber- nacles, that in ordinary conversation they were never sepa- ' Devi, xvi, 13 ; Niimb. xxLx, 12. ^ Numb, xxix, 35 ; Levit. xxiii, 36 ; II Esdras viii, 18. [216] BOOK III] LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL rated,^ and to the solemnity was devoted a space of eight days. The eighth day,* called by Philo the "most holy conclusion of the year," and by the Rabbis "the last and good day," is the same that is designated by St. John as the last and the greatest of all. It was prob- ably one of the days on which the following events oc- curred. On each one of these eight days, as is said in a passage of the Talmud,* a symbolical libation was poured out. As there was no spring of living water within the Temple, recourse was had, after the sacrifice of the morning, to the fountain of Siloe, which flowed at the foot of the holy moun- tain. There a priest filled a golden urn with fresh, clear water, and bore it solemnly into the Temple through the entrance called the Gate of the Waters, amid the peal of trumpets and universal joy. On reaching the altar of the holocausts, he halted, and, at the cry of the multitude about him "Lift up thy hand," he mingled the water in the golden urn with wine in a silver cup, and thus poured out the libations, while the public joy and gratitude were proclaimed in the enthusiastic chanting of the great Hallel^ These special rites, which are not found in the legisla- tion of Moses, but which the Rabbis mention with their ^ Josephus, Antiq., iii, 10 : 'E<^' fifitpas okt^ iopriiv Hyovras, k. t. \. Then he adds : " On the eighth day they lay absolutely ail work aside. It is the custom among the Hebrews to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in this way." (// Mace, x, 6.) * On this hypothesis Jesus continued, on the following days and beyond the festival time, the application which He made of certain symbols used in the celebration, as, for instance, the lighted candelabra, to His role as Messiah. If we wish to accept the day named by St. John (vii, 37) as only the seventh day, which may be considered a great day, although not the most solemn, the discourse on the light of the world was pronounced on the eighth day, the Feast of the Azareth. 'In treatise Succah, c. 4, § 9, R. Jehuda says: "Libant unum logum omnibus octo diebus et libanti dicunt: Eleva manimi tuam." ' Ps. cxiii, cxviii. [217] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second minutest details/ had been introduced in the times of the prophets, or perhaps only after the return from the cap- tivity, together with the other innovations of the Pharisees. Are we to take these libations of the seven days to be a mystical commemoration of the waters that had refreshed the people in the desert, and those of the eighth day to be a thanksgiving for the springs in which the promised land abounded? Or was this mingling of wine with water nothing else than a solemn thanksgiving for the rains and harvests of the year ? ^ The branches laden with fruit which were borne in procession would seem to favour this latter explanation. But we must look higher for the real sense of these pious symbols. The Rabbis themselves tell us that in them there was more thought of the future than of the past, and in their opinion all these ceremonies were less a thanksgiving than a prayer. In fact, on this occa- sion the people chanted with a lively faith the prophecy of Isaias : "Thou shalt draw waters in the fountains of the Saviour." The Messianic times had always appeared to them under the emblem of vivifying waters that were to flow over the earth. Like flowing waters that come to the thirsty, or like rivers that spread over dry lands, so the spirit of God would come upon the race of Jacob.^ According to Joel ^^ waters would run in the rivers of Juda, and an abundant spring would leap from the house of the Lord to water the torrent of Thorns. Finally Zacharias ^^ supposed that the heavenly flood would cover the entire world with the most wholesome fertility. ^ See Wetstein on this passage ; also Lightfoot. ' Philo, De Septen. et Festis Extra., says: "To these seven days an eighth is added, the name of which declares it to be, as it were, a corollary not only of this festival, as is easily seen, but also of all the feasts of the year. For this solemnity of the eighth day is the last of the year, and is a sort of ending, a fixed and specially consecrated limit, ffv^iiripafffxa aytdnepov." The land had then borne all its fruits, and each one, having gathered his crops, blessed the hand of the Creator. ^ Isa.x\iv,3. '"^eZiii, 18. ^^ Zach.xiy,8. [218] BOOK III] LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL But now the time was come when all these figures were near to their realisation. In response to the solemn sup- plication of Israel, which had gone forth resounding on the precedings days, and still re-echoed in the sacred enclo- sure, Jesus, standing in the midst of the multitude, pro- claimed : "If any man thirst let him come to Me and drink. He that beHeveth in Me, as the Scripture saith,^^ out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." ^^ For is not Christ the rock that gives drink to the people dying of thirst in the desert ? This new figure of the flowing foun- tain is realised in Him, as are those of the brazen serpent, the pillar of light, the manna, and the Paschal lamb. Whoever is tortured with the thirst of anxiety, of doubt, ^^ It is a question to what part of the Scriptures Jesus here alludes. No- where, in the texts in our possession, has it been possible to discover this quotation with all the ideas it evokes. Some have thought that it was part of a sacred book no longer in existence. Others, with St. Chrysostom, Eunctuate the passage differently, and translate it : "If any man thirst, let im come to Me, and drink. lie tliat beheveth in Me, in keeping with the Scriptures," etc. More recently some have thought of dividing the passage so as to make the first two words of verse 38 of St. John \u ihe subject of vivirw in verse 37, and translate it with an inversion: "Let him drink, he that believeth in Me"; thus KoiKias outoS might refer to Jesus. But since the Saviour had already applied to His body tlie idea of a temple, in speak- ing thus He might have had in view Joel iv, 18 ; Zach. xiv, 8 ; Ezech. xlvii, 1-12. The majority, in despair of finding the different figures united in one single text, prefer to accept tliis quotation as an allusion either to several passages in Scripture or to only one of the following, which recall the idea of going to drink at a spring, or even that of becoming a spring one's self. These are in Isa. Iv, 1: "All you that thirst come to the waters"; and that cited above, xliv, 3; and again Iviii, 11: "Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a foimtain of water, whose waters shall not fail." Like- wise the text from Joel cited above, and the detailed description by Ezechiel (xlvii, 1-12). However, the picture of the just man becoming a fountain can scarcely be drawn with justice except from tlie following passages: "Thy law is in the midst of my heart" (Ps. xxxix, 9); "Son of man, thy belly shall eat, and thy bowels shall be filled with this book which I give thee " (Ezech. iii, 3). "*This figure is not unknown to the Rabbis. Tanchuma, fol. 44, 1, says: " Unde Abraham didicit legem? R. Simeon filius Jochai dLxit: Bini renes ipsius tanquam binse lagense aquarum factae sunt ex quibus lex promanavit." And in Sohar Chadasch, fol. 44, 4, is found: "Quando homo se convertit ad Dominum tanquam fons vi\'is aquis impletur, et fluenta ejus egrediuntur ad omnis generis homines et ad omnes tribus." [219] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second of sin, has only to drink of the Hving waters that the Saviour holds out to him. He shall at once be satiated, and even flooded beyond his need; so much so, that from him shall flow streams capable of satiating yet other souls. For he who has seized upon Jesus Christ by faith, and has brought Him into his heart, at once becomes His Apostle, and propagates His name, His doctrine. His grace. The disciples will be a living proof of this later on. It was to this, according to the Evangelist, that Jesus alluded here. "Now," adds St. John, "this He said of the Spirit which they would receive who beheved in Him, for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." 1* This discourse of Jesus, of which the Evangelist gives us " It is not difBcult to grasp the connection of ideas by which the Evangelist perceives in the figure employed by Jesus the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Water, in Scripture, is an emblem of moral regeneration, absolution, and salvation. Isaias goes so far as to establish a complete parallelism between water and the Spirit. According to him God annoimces the effusion of the Spirit, in promising, as a figure, the effusion of the water. (Isa. xliv, 3.) St. John's explanation of Jesus' thought and allusion was, therefore, wholly in Isaias. But how can the Evangelist say that the Spirit was not yet ? This strange assertion, which seems to have troubled the copyists — some having added, others having omitted, certain words in the text in order to soften its crudeness — presents, however, no serious difficulty to Christian theology. The Holy Spirit with the Word and the Father has His being from all eternity in an unchanging Trinity of di\ane Persons. StiU, as far as man is concerned, the activity of these Persons may be said to manifest itself in successive phases. Thus, as the Word has not ceased to act in the world as its light and its beauty, so, too, the Spirit has at all times strengthened the souls of the just. It was He WTiom David received into his heart (/ Kings xvi, 13), and Whom he begged God not to take from him {Ps. H). It is He Whom Israel has always possessed {Isa. Ixiii, 2), and of Whom it has been proud as its most glorious prerogative. It is He, in fine, according to the Apostles' teachings {Acts xxviii, 25; II Peter i, 21), Who, with His breath, inspired the prophets of the Old Testament. But, as the Word was pleased to fulfil in the Incarnation the great manifestation of His Personahty, which was to overshadow all His various manifestations in other creatures, so the Spirit reserved until Pentecost an effusion sufficiently universal and fowerful to eclipse all His individual or secret communications in past times, n this sense God had said by the prophet {Isa. Ixv, 17): "Behold I create a new heaven and a new earth ; the former things shall not be in remembrance and they shall not come upon the heart." But the Holy Ghost can come [220 ] BOOK III] LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL here only a general idea/*'' agitated the multitude and di- vided it into two well-defined factions, friends and enemies. Of the first, some said : "This is the prophet indeed" ; and by this they meant some one of those valiant defenders of the rights of God under the Old Law, who was to come back to earth to glorify Him during the days of the Mes- siah. Others, more enthusiastic and farther advanced toward faith, exclaimed: "This is the Christ!" As for His enemies, they sought for objections — and malevolence can always find them — "Doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Doth not the Scripture say that Christ cometh out of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the town where David was?" Elsewhere we have seen how these prophetical indications had had their complete fulfilment at the birth of Jesus. The multitude, only vaguely ac- quainted with the past of Him Whom they pretended to judge, were ignorant of the fact that the enrolment had been precisely the occasion of His being born at Bethlehem. Seeing Him come forth out of Galilee, they deemed them- selves right in denying, according to the prophecy of Micheas,^^ the Messianic character of His origin. In reality, in order to avoid all error in the interpretation of this prophecy, its precise meaning should have been de- with the abundance of His gifts only into souls purified from all stain ; the Old Testament taught this {Ps. li; Jeremias xxxi, 21; Isa. lix, 2), and this is why His outpouring cannot take place until after the glorification of Jesus Christ, that is, after the complete restoration of mankind. This restoration, inaugurated in the expiation on Calvary, was completed in the final triumph of Ascension Day. That is the reason why in His words and in His actions Jesus has always made the coming of the^Holy Ghost sub- sequent to the consummation of His work. (St. John xvi, 7 et passim, 20, 22 ; Aets ii, 33.) The Spirit shall be, shall reign in the world when the Son shall have been glorified. ^^ The plural twv K6ywv roiruv, which is found in the best manuscripts, in- dicates a development of the discourse which, indeed, is supposed on accoimt of the agitation of the people. One or two phrases would not have sufficed to draw from the multitude the professions of faith that follow. St. John simply gives the general idea which the Master had taken pains to develop. 1" Mich. V. 1. [221] LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t second termined by another prediction from Isalas ^^ indicating Galilee as the point where the great manifestation of the Messiah should begin. But the prejudice that moves them to seek for objections in Scripture, also prevents them from finding there the texts that should solve them. These difficulties, to which the Evangelist pays no attention, since he judges them to be of too little value, appeared to be decisive for many among the Jews. They provoked vio- lent disputes and accentuated the divisions among those present. It was because of this growing agitation that the thought of arresting Jesus recurred. But from the idea to the execution was yet a far cry. Whether it was that God directly protected His Son, or that the enthusiasm of His friends seemed a serious danger to His enemies and made them circumspect, no one ventured to lay hands on the Master in order to take possession of His august per- son. More than this, the officers of the police departed filled with admiration for Him Whom they had closely followed, and deeply moved by the discourses they had heard. When the chief -priests and Pharisees saw them return- ing alone, they exclaimed in anger: "Why have you not brought Him?" But they could only avoAV the surprise and the respect with which His powerful words had inspired them: "Never did man speak like this man," said they. This reply not only wounded the pride of the Sanhedrim, it also proved their injustice. According to the very avowal of these officers, that is to say, of servants ever ready to flatter their masters, not one of the doctors of the Synagogue approached the authority of Jesus. The young Prophet displayed an eloquence with which no other was comparable. The officers declared so sincerely, and " Isa. ix, 1. [ 222 ] BOOK in] LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL the chief-priests were vexed thereby. "Are you also se- duced?" they exclaimed in their anger. "Hath any one of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in Him ? But this multitude that knoweth not the law, are accursed." We can easily discern in these words, together with their sense- less arrogance, the Pharisaical sect which Jesus has so often stigmatised, but never converted. Their nature is here plainly evidenced. Exaggerated esteem of self, con- tempt of others, presumption, sophistry, brutality ; noth- ing is lacking. There is also something ridiculous about it, for these men who so proudly talk of their collective and unanimous resistance to Jesus' teaching, seem to ignore the fact that Jesus counts at least one follower among them. They pretend that the ignorant only can be seduced, and yet Nicodemus, doctor of Israel, as Jesus once had named him, was long ago won over to the ideas of the Prophet of Nazareth. Must he, too, be likened to the vile populace.'' Is he not a member of the Grand Council.'' Moreover, without entirely ridding himself of that timidity which we have seen in him, but with an affected and somewhat malicious indifference, Nicodemus at once arises to take Jesus' part. In the name of the law, which they boast that they know so well, and which nevertheless they observe so little, he demands a more com- plete investigation of the case. "Doth our law judge any man," he says, "unless it first hear him, and know what he doeth.?" Pretending to be free from all partisanship, Nicodemus simply stood as one without bias among these passionate judges. But the very fact that he does not share the fanaticism of these furious men is sufficient to declare him their enemy ; by not sharing in their moral exaltation, he draws upon himself their anger and their insults. It was not in vain that he would have recalled these [223 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second pretentious legalists to an observance of the elements of justice. "Art thou also a Galilean?" they said to him eagerly; "search out the Scripture, and see that out of Galilee a prophet riseth not." This was not logic, it was invective. For not joining in their unjust wrath, Nico- demus beheld himself insulted; they asked if he was a Galilean, and this fine argument ended with the asser- tion that inasmuch as Galilee had never hitherto had any prophet, it was incredible that it should begin by pro- ducing one now. The legitimacy of the antecedent clause might be contested, for it is probable that several of the prophets had been Galileans,^® but, in any case, the con- clusion was absurd, as the past was not necessarily to be the rule of the future. Such is the sophistry by which passion leads human reason from truth to error. As a matter of fact, all knew that the Messiah did not confine His action to Galilee. The centre of the religious life of Judaism was in Jerusalem, and there, according to Scripture and reason, should occur the final and decisive manifestation. But to deny that the Messiah could begin His labours in Galilee was to misunderstand the celebrated oracle of Isaias, which described the first light of the Gospel as coming forth from the green mountains of that province. Finally, to be ignorant of the fact that Jesus was really born in Judea denoted that they had neglected to seek the truth concerning His origin. In the presence of such partisanship and ignorance, discussion was super- fluous and impossible. It does not appear that it was '^ There are, in fact, three prophets who are thought by many to be natives of Galilee. As regards Jonas, who was of Gathepher (IV Kings xiv, 25), this is certain. As for Nahmn, it must be ascertained whether he is really of the village of Elkoschi, as St. Jerome supposes, or of the race of Koschi, as the Rabbis teach, and whether or not Koschi is really the name of a Galilean village, as St. Jerome alone asserts. As for Osee, it is still more doubtful. Elias, according to the testimony found in 77 J Kings xvii, 1, and in Tobias i, 2, was of Galaad, and not a Galilean. [ 224 ] BOOK III] LAST DAY OF THE FESTIVAL further prolonged. The Evangelist merely says that every man returned to his own house, the few followers of Jesus congratulating themselves perhaps on their timid courage, and His enemies stirring themselves up to a plan of action to be better prepared and more energetically carried out. [225] CHAPTER III THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY The Phakisees Ask that Jesus Act as Judge in the Case of a Woman Taken in Adultery — The Two- fold Danger Which They Seek to Create — Jesus Remains Silent and Writes Upon the Ground — What He Wrote — The Words He Addresses to THE Accusers Transfer the Question from Jurid- ical TO Moral Grounds — He Sustains the Law, BUT Suppresses the Accusers — The Sinner Is For- given. (St. John vii, 53-vIii, 11.) Jesus, Who had turned away in the direction of the Mount of OHves, to pass the night there beneath some leafy shelter, in the midst of His pilgrim friends, reap- peared the next morning at daybreak in the Temple. The multitude again surrounded Him with evident eagerness. Seating Himself, He was beginning to instruct them, when a most unexpected incident furnished His enemies with an opportunity of setting a snare to entrap Him. In the midst of those boisterous celebrations (which Plutarch calls the bacchanalia of the Jews), among the foreigners who had come from all parts to share in this unusual life of freedom and of joy that was often worldly, an unfortu- nate woman fell disgracefully. Taken in the very act of adultery, she was brought before Jesus with the emotion of her guilt fresh upon her and covered with shame. [226] BOOK III] WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY Certain Pharisees and Scribes had assumed charge of the affair. Their manner of procedure leads us to beHeve that they were of the famous sect of Zealots. They dragged the criminal into the midst of the assem- bly, saying: "Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery. Now, Moses in the law commanded us to stone ^ such an one. But what sayest Thou.'"' Thus, notwith- standing their irritation against Jesus, they made Him judge. In reality, this was the more surely to destroy Him, for according to His response they hoped to be able to compromise Him and to arouse against Him uni- versal indignation. Hatred, as it approaches its object, frequently fawns and flatters in order the better to wreak its vengeance. We know that the Pharisees had often tried to set Jesus in opposition to Moses. Thoroughly confounded by His application of the law of the Sab- bath, they eagerly seized the opportunity of trying Him on another delicate point, the important question of adultery. They supposed that, with His daring views, the new Reformer would maintain the theories of indulgence and mercy even for such a crime as this. Was He not the avowed friend of publicans and sinners.'' And if, now, ' In Levit. xx, 10, and Deut. xxii, 22, an adulteress is simply con- demned to death; and it seems, according to the Talmud, that when the manner of death is not specified, strangulation is understood. (Mischna, Tract. Sanhedrin, fol. 5, 2.) Therefore, there would be here an ignorance of the law or of Jewish customs which would contribute to make doubtful the genuineness of this fragment, which is considered spm-ious even from other points of view. But would not this be giving too great authority to the Mischna, especially when we see in Ezech. xvi, 38^0, that adulterers were to be stoned ? Even Moses, when not fixing the penalty of stoning to death for certain crimes, does not exclude it. (See, e. g., on the violation of the Sabbath: E.vod. xxxi, 14; xxx, 11; compare with Numb, xv, 32, 35.) In addition to these reasons, which appear to be decisive in disproving a very general text of the Mischna, we can always suppose that the adulteress accused before Jesus was not a wife, but a faithless affianced woman, and in that case, according to Moses himself (Deut. xxii, 23-24), she should positively be stoned. [ 227 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [partsecjond His tolerance should go so far, it would be easy to un- mask His ideas, as being subversive of morality as well as of religion, and to rouse public opinion against Him. If, what seemed impossible. He were to take His stand by the side of the law, if He were to pronounce the applica- tion of the penalty decreed by Moses, He would deny His whole past, renounce His beautiful maxims concerning clemency, break with all the unfortunates who were flat- tering themselves that they had a place in His Kingdom, and, above all, render Himself responsible before the San- hedrim and the authority of Rome, for the consequences of a sentence of death. For they were ready to inflict at once the penalty decreed by Moses should Jesus declare her worthy of it. Following the example of Phineas,^ whose spirit they sought to revive, the Zealots, in their indignation against crime, anticipated the judges' regular sentence, and proudly arrogated to themselves the right of executing the guilty. Jesus had come on earth to apply not the law of men, but only the law of God. Instead of replying to their question, He simply bent down and with His finger wrote upon the ground.' Was it His intention thus to signify His contempt for those who came to tempt Him, and His firm resolution to make no reply? The philosopher of whom ^Elianus * speaks, had done this ; instead of solv- ing the difficulty proposed to him, he had turned round and written on the wall. This, too, the Jewish ^ Rabbis sometimes did when they were unwilling to pronounce judg- ' Numb. XXV, 6, etc. ^ In Jer. xvii, 13, God writes on the earth the names of those who abandon Him. There is no reason for preserving them, since they them- selves must perish. The men who pass by, the storms that rage, are charged with their obliteration. They who have renounced their wish to be inscribed in the Book of Eternity, have their place only in the miserable Book of Time. * Hist. Var., xiv, 19. ^ Schoettgen, Hor. Heb., ad h. 1. [ 228 ] BOOK III] WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY ment in delicate matters. The persistence of the Pharisees in seeking a reply from Jesus, leads us to believe that they had interpreted His action in this way. In that case, the incoherent signs that the Master was writing expressed nothing else than His clear resolution not to speak. How- ever, it is more probable that, since Jesus made the motion of writing. He had really written. The harsh, proud attitude of the accusers had stirred up His indignation, and He determined to make their hypocrisy manifest. According to the Roman law, be- fore every judgment the act of accusation had to be pre- sented to the judge together with the names of the accus- ers. This had not been done in the present instance; but it was in all likelihood the formality that Jesus wished to observe when He bent down to write the first time. The same legislation ^ exacted besides that the citizen who con- stituted himself accuser before the judge, should him- self be at least less guilty than the accused; otherwise he ran the risk of being charged in turn and even judged first of all. Jesus, having probably begun by making the legal list of the accusers, afterward attentively observes it. They think He is hesitating, and press Him to speak. Then rising up. He exclaims : "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Jewish law authorised that the accuser or the witness should be forced to act as executioner. This requirement in the present case was very much like an accusation. But the wicked are clever in assuming a brazen front to pretend that the accusa- tions of honest men do not reach them. The Pharisees stood impassive. Then Jesus stooped down to write again. 'Heineccii, Antiq. Juris Rom., lib. iv, tit. 18, §17-20. Cicero (7n. Ver- rum, 3, at the beginning) alludes to it: "Vis corruptorem aliquem vel adul- terum accusare? Providenduni diligenter ne in tua vita vestigium libidinis appareat," etc. [229] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second According to some manuscripts, He added to the name of each accuser a list of his faultsJ The ground became as if on fire, and the trial was unendurable. A public dis- closure of the most secret sins, under such conditions, was a punishment no man would bear. The first of all those who had accused the wretched woman — they were the an- cients of the people — seeing themselves inscribed at the head of the list, unmasked, and justly qualified according to their personal vices, disappeared one by one. The others had no further desire to prolong the experience, and, without delay, all withdrew in succession from the oldest to the youngest, the former in shame for what had been written, the latter in fear of what would be written. Thus Jesus had preserved the law of Moses with its divine authority, and had succeeded in saving the accused woman. He had judged it enough merely to deny the competence of her judges and the worth of witnesses as guilty as herself. With admirable skill He had transferred the question from juridical grounds, where the Pharisees had placed it, and where, since He was not an official judge. He did not wish to treat it, to the moral grounds on which He could so easily humiliate and discourage the accusers. When one judges in the name of law and of the office it confers, one need not be a saint in order to attack the vice that is accused by public honesty. But when one constitutes himself judge, he must, at least, be morally superior to the man he judges. Here, neither in the name of the law nor in the name of their personal virtue had the Pharisees any right to pose as accusers, much less as authorised judges. Through the medium of this shameful flight of the enemy whom a word written on the ground had hurled ^ The manuscript TJ and others have kvhs eKaarov avrwy ras a/xaprlas, [ 230 ] BOOK III] WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY back in confusion into the darkness, the multitude was enabled to contemplate the most sublime, the most touch- ing, the most God-like spectacle. Jesus was alone with the adulteress: He towering in all His moral majesty, beautiful in His sanctity, radiant in His mercy; she, shamed, impure, trembling; both victims escaped from the malice of men, and remained finally victors of the field. Jesus was the triumphant and glorious Saviour; the woman was the sheep wounded and defiled by the teeth of savage beasts. Would her new Master enclose her within the fold or cast her out amid the oifal.? Her brow covered with shame, her eyes cast down, her hands crossed in an attitude of despair, the wretched woman awaited her sentence. Jesus, Who was ever kind as well as wise, regarded her with compassion, and, seeing that everybody had disap- peared. He said: "Woman, where are they that accused thee.? Hath no man condemned thee.?" She replied: "No man. Lord." And Jesus said: "Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more." Thus He Who alone could possibly be found with the conditions required to strike the guilty in the name of morality, refuses to do it.^ This is because, although in His sanctity He has a horror of sin, in His goodness He still has love for the sinner. He does not crush the culprit in His anger. He mercifully gives her time to reform. Instead of saying as He did to Magdalen : "Go in peace," He utters simply the word "Go !" to show, no doubt, the distance that separates these two women, one of whom had come of her own accord, moved by repentance, the other led forcibly by the judges ; the former full of faith and love, the latter simply humiliated and confused. To IMagdalen He granted perfect justification. To the adulteress He gives * This is understood from the "neither will I " {ovSe iyd>), on Jesus' lips. [ 231 ] LIFE OF CHRIST [part second time and means to acquire it by a moral penance, which is the most useful, the sweetest, and most severe of all since it creates the moral obligation of sinning no more. The grandeur of this whole scene proves the authenticity of the narrative.^ • It is true that several of the Fathers of the Church, and some of the most ancient, have said nothing of this beautiful passage ; such are, for example, Origen, TertuUian, St. Cyprian, Apollinaris, St. Chrysostom, and others. The reason of this is that it was not in the Gospel of their time. In fact, a great number of manuscripts do not contain it : e. g., the manuscripts K ABLTXA (from the fourth to the ninth century), and sixty others. Thirty evangelistaries, Italic, Sahidic, Coptic, Syriac, do not contain it. It must be acknowledged that the Orientals had suppressed it at an early date, and they did so with suffi- cient daring to cause it to be marked with a sign of doubt in several manu- scripts which have retained it (EM2An). Others place it at the end of the Gospel of St. John, as an Apostohcal fragment intentionally detached, the proper place for which seems uncertain. One or two add it to chapter xvi of St. Luke; but they probably transferred it to the text, taking it from a marginal note put tliere for some purpose of concordance. Finally the numerous variants found in every hne show that this passage has only with great difficulty withstood the terrible opposition early declared against it. It may have been a dogmatic prejudice that moved certain sectaries in the second centm-y to suppress this sublime fragment in which God's mercy might seem to be exaggerated. The Montanists especially, who introduced an awful rigorism, might have been scandalised and embarrassed by such an instance of Christian clemency. And, as a matter of fact, the environ- ment amid which this sect took its rise and developed, in Phrygia, to wit; the epoch during which it was powerful, the better part, namely, of the second centm-y; the daring of its chiefs, who apphed the shears of their interested criticism to the Holy Books themselves — all this was easily in harmony with tlie act of violence which a great number of Oriental manuscripts seem to have suffered at this same date, and which the copies in the West and in Constantinople alone escaped. It is true that, to be logical, the Montanists or Catapluygians should have suppressed other passages, too; that of the prodigal son, of the sinful woman at the feet of Jesus, etc. ; but error is not always sufficiently consistent or sufficiently daring to follow out all its prem- ises. It is even doubtful whether it may not be said that in any of these in- stances of di\ane mercy, the duty of judging only for the sake of forgiving is as clearly set forth as in the story of the adulteress. Besides this hypothesis, which makes a sect responsible for the suppression of this passage, many have thought that from the beginning the Churches, in obedience to an inspiration of excessive prudence, had deemed it preferable, in the midst of perverted popidations, not to lay this story commonly before the multitude, smce it might seem rather an encouragement to disorder than a subject of moral edification. This is the explanation given by St. Augustine (Con. Faustum, 22, 25 ; de Adtdt., conj. 2, 6, 7) and by St. Ambrose (Apol. Davidis Securida). But in admitting this supposition, it must still be asked how it happened that this suppression took place in nearly all the manu- [232] BOOK III] WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY scripts of the East and in scarcely one of tlie West. It has been said that although the dissolute morals of Asia and Africa were in danger of being justified, pardon being thus easily obtained, the West, which in general wa:5 governed by a more severe ecclesiastical discipline, would find in such a spectacle of divine goodness a consolation and not a danger. Perhaps we should add that the Church of Rome, whose glory it has ever been to maintain the truth untrammelled, even amid circumstances the most embarrassing and apparently the most dangerous for her, has always refrained from bending to the mean desires of certain too-easily-offended minds. She has ever kept in view the entire Catholic world, and not a group of men or of peoples; and as a faithful depositary, she has preserved the Gospel just as the Apostles preached it for all tunes and for all men, without suppressing the least detail thereof. However that may be, the first citation of tliis admirable fragment which has been found is in the Apostolic Comtitutions (i, 2, 24). Even though the final compilation of this oook was the work of an Oriental bishop of the latter part of the third century (which is far from being demonstrated), it would be none the less probable that its author borrowed the greater part of the documents from the Western Church. The story of the adulteress in particular must have come to him from the evangelistaries of Rome, if we suppose that it was not, at that epoch, in tlie Oriental manuscripts, and we reach the conclusion that from the remotest antiquity the West has been acquainted with this passage. Moreover, there is confirmation of this view on every side. The manuscripts D, F, G, H, K,U, and three hundred others, from the sixth century to the ninth, as well as the Italic version, the Vulgate, and the Latin version of the Concordance of Tatian, contain these eleven verses. St. Jerome (Adv. Pelag., 2, 6) notices their presence in a great number of Greek and Latin manuscripts of his time. We do not care to cite in proof of our thesis the authority of Papias, whose testimony Eusebius has recorded in his history {Hist. Eccles., iu, 40). The woman accused of many sins, of whom he speaks : 4irl iroKeus apuaprlais StafiK7]6eipa, " I have recovered my sight," as used by one born blind. Grotius replies to this very suita- [261] LIFE OF CHRIST Lpart second It would be difficult to imagine anything more lifelike, more natural, more complete than this description given by the Evangelist. In the multitude every shade of hesi- tation, of incredulity, of conviction ; in the man whose sight was restored, the enthusiastic ingenuousness of a sincere man. The universal excitement leads to an inquiry. The Thaumaturgus is called for. The beggar scarcely knows Him; he gives His name correctly, but can tell no more about Him. But the man called Jesus is no longer there. He has done a good work, and has passed on. All this happened on a Sabbath-day. The curiosity to prove juridically so strange a miracle, the fact of the Sab- bath violated by the healing of a sick man, the deep enmity against Him Whom the mendicant had just named, gave rise to as many serious motives for deferring the matter to a council of competent men. The members of this tri- bunal, however, are not known. On the Sabbath-day neither the Sanhedrim nor any other tribunal held court. There is probably question here of a mere improvised assembly in the first synagogue encountered, in which the Pharisees assumed for themselves the principal part. With their carping minds and their avowed hostility they could not but constitute a severe and unfavourably disposed tri- bunal. Even to-day our positivist philosophers would not proceed to an inquest with more cleverness or more obsti- nate malevolence. They began by questioning the beggar and making him repeat his story. He did so with per- fect exactitude, using the very same terms as in his first deposition. bly, "Non male recipere quis dicitur, quod communiter tributum humanse naturae ipsi abfuit." Pausanias (Messen, iv, 12, 5), and the Gospel of Nicodemus (vi), employ the same expression in speaking of some who had been born blind and who recovered their sight. To see is a natural right belonging to man, so much so that even when deprived of it from his birth, one may still say that he recovers it the day on which he obtains his sight. [262] BOOK III] THE MAN BORN BLIND At once a discussion arose as to the appreciation of the facts, and two well-defined factions were formed. For some, the point worthy of attention was that the Thauma- turgus had allowed Himself not only to effect a medicinal cure on the Sabbath-day, which in itself was a sin, but also to prepare clay,^*^ which was really a crime. For others, the clearest point was that a miracle had been per- formed.^^ And while the former concluded that he could not be of God who did not observe the Sabbath, the lat- ter contended that a sinner could not work such wonders. Both parties became bitterly aroused, and the discussion was heated. They appealed to the judgment of the wit- ness. "What sayest thou of Him that hath opened thy eyes.'"' He answered: "He is a prophet." Common-sense could find no other conclusion in the presence of such a miracle. But they who had put the question counted on a reply less clear, which would leave some room for an explanation of this prodigy by sorcery or by some device of the medical art. They were angered at having obtained such a reply. From this moment it is the purely malevolent party of the tribunal alone that conducts the affair. Pretending to look upon the mendicant as an impostor in connivance with Jesus to impose upon the multitude, the judges re- " The Evangelist emphasises rhv TrriAhv iiroir)